Lost Bach composition turns up after decades

During his career Joel Kuznik has served as a college organist and professor, a church musician, a pastor, and as a business executive on Fifth Avenue, Wall Street, and at MetLife. After several years of retirement from business, he resumed writing for professional journals, something he had done since his college days. After attending the Bachfest 2003 in Leipzig, he again began writing articles and reviews. With over 60 pieces in print ranging from reviews of concerts and festivals, travelogues, books on church music, concert hall organs, CDs and DVDs, he was recognized and named to the Music Critics Association of North America (MCANA) in May 2005. He is also a member of the American Bach Society and serves on the board of the Bach Vespers at Holy Trinity in New York City, where he has lived for 32 years. His organ teachers were Austin C. Lovelace, Frederick Swann, Ronald Arnatt, David Craighead, Jean Langlais, Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier, and Anton Heiller. As a member of the AGO, he has served as dean of the Ft. Wayne chapter, on the executive board of the New York City chapter, and on the national financial board. He holds a BA summa cum laude from Concordia Sr. College (formerly at Ft. Wayne), a Min.Div and STM from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and a MM from Eastman School of Music.

Latest Bach manuscript discovery:
Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, BWV 1128
The discovery of a Bach manuscript always raises curiosity and excites expectant interest. This latest work, an organ chorale fantasia just discovered in March, is a reminder that new revelations can come at any time from any source.
Bach’s copy of the Calov Bible was found in an attic in Frankenmuth, Michigan in 1934, but forgotten until after WWII, in 1962. More recently in 1999, after a 20-year detective hunt worthy of a spy mystery and with a tip from an East German librarian, Christian Wolff tracked down C.P.E. Bach’s estate, with 5,100 musical manuscripts, to Kiev. Originally in the Berlin State Library, the Russian army absconded with this treasure trove of manuscripts after the war. Included were works by Johann Sebastian, among which were his last work, a motet he apparently prepared for his own funeral.
In 2004 an aria by Bach was found in Weimar in a box of birthday cards among holdings of the Anna Amalia Library, just months before it was destroyed by fire. Two years later in 2006 from the same Weimar library, researchers also found Bach’s oldest manuscripts in his own hand: organ works by Buxtehude and Reinken he copied at the age of fifteen. Most recently in March of 2008, a newly discovered organ work was found in an estate sale in Leipzig, in a sense, right under the nose of the musicians at St. Thomas!
This is a double review. The first discusses the organ score and reveals a fascinating history of teacher-student transmission, estate sales, alert and not-so-alert librarians, savvy editors, guesswork and unanswered questions. Much like studies in genealogy, one can trace documented history back only so far and, in this case, only to the mid-nineteenth century, 100 years after Bach. The second review on the CD, featuring both the organ fantasia and the cantata based on the same chorale, was released on June 13, 2008 at the opening concert of the Leipzig Bachfest and shares Ullrich Böhme’s experience of studying and preparing a first performance of a Bach work. How many have had that opportunity!
Obviously this is not the end of the story. No doubt surprises and discoveries still await detection by sharp-sighted scholars and through pure serendipity.

Bach, Johann Sebastian, Choralfantasie für Orgel [2 Manuale und Pedal] über “Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält,” BWV 1128, First Edition, edited by Stephan Blaut and Michael Pacholke with a foreword by Hans-Joachim Schulze. 2008, Ortus Musikverlag, Kassel, 24 pp., €13.50; <www.ortus-musikverlag.de/&gt;.

Contents
Prologue by Schulze, musicologist and former director of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig. Critical report on Source A (Halle, Martin Luther University, University-State Library of Sachsen-Anhalt, with signature) and Source B (Leipzig, Bach-Archiv, no signature) with score variants noted. Chorale melody from Wittenberg (1533, perhaps 1529) and eight-verse text by Justus Jonas (1493–1555) based on Psalm 124. Facsimiles of cover page and first page of musical score. Critical edition, based on Source A: 85 bars, pp. 1–9.

History
How is it that an organ work by Bach was just discovered and authenticated March 15, 2008 after it had passed through so many hands, including collectors, musicians, editors and auction houses?
According to Schulze’s foreword, this is what is known to date. The first public record of this chorale fantasia is 1845, almost 100 years after Bach’s death, listed among organ pieces by “Sebastian Bach” in the estate auction for Johann Nicolaus Julius Kötschau (1788–1845), once organist at St. Mary’s in Halle/Salle. According to public record, he acquired the pieces in an 1814 auction along with the “Clavier-Büchlein of Wilhelm Friedemann” (1720), Bach’s son and once an organist in Halle, who had passed the scores on to his distant relative and student Johann Christian (1743–1814), known as the “Clavier-Bach.” Kötschau, who apparently was reluctant to share his prize collection, eventually relented, first loaning it to Mendelssohn (1840) and then Leipzig publishers C. F. Peters (1843). However, there is no evidence that anyone recognized the significance of what they saw.
In the 1845 auction of Kötschau’s estate, the manuscript, along with other Bach works, was acquired by Friedrich August Gotthold (1778–1858), a former member of the Sing-Akademie Berlin and then director of the Collegium in Königsberg, East Prussia. In 1852, in order to preserve his collection, he donated it to the Königsberg Library, but it only drew attention 25 years later when Joseph Müller, in spite of opposition from superiors, prepared a catalogue, which on p. 93 lists “24 books of organ compositions by J. S. Bach,” of which fascicle No. 5 lists “Fantasia Sopra il Corale ‘Wo Gott der Herr nicht bey uns hält’ pro Organo à 2 Clav. e Pedale.”
This got the attention of Wilhelm Rust (1822–1892), who had it sent on a library loan to Berlin, where he copied it. This transcription of September 8, 1877 has become “Source A” of this edition, and it is unknown whether Rust, as editor of 26 volumes of the 46-volume Bach-Gesamtausgabe, intended to include it. He resigned over conflicts, particularly with Philipp Spitta, but got even in 1878, in a sense, by sharing the composition with Spitta’s rival Carl Hermann Bittner, whose Vol. IV of his second edition of
“J. S. Bach” (Dresden 1880 / Berlin 1881) includes “141. Wo Gott der Herr nicht bey uns hält. Fantasia sopra il Chorale G-moll. (Königsberger Bibliothek.)” For whatever reason the chorale fantasia was not included in the Gesamtausgabe, so Wolfgang Schmieder in his Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (Leipzig 1950) put a fragment of it in an appendix (BWV Anh. II 71).
After Rust’s death in 1892, a large part of his collection went to his student, Erich Prieger (1849–1913), who wrote an extensive essay in 1885 on “Wilhelm Rust and His Bach Edition.” Prieger’s collection in turn was put up for auction after WW I in three sections, one of which went in 1924 to the Cologne book dealer M. Lempertz and refers to many copies of “Bachiana” from the 18th and 19th centuries, including in Lot No. 157 with Rust’s collection of manuscripts.
In summary, the transmission was from Wilhelm Friedemann to Johann Christian to Kötschau, and then from Gotthold to the Königsberg Library to Rust to Prieger, and ultimately from Cologne to . . . .

Discovery
When on March 15, 2008 the Leipzig auction firm of Johannes Wend offered Lot No. 153 with “manuscripts from the estate of Wilhelm Rust. Mostly compositions of his own or arrangements of works by Bach . . . ,” no one could have anticipated that this included parts of Prieger’s collection and the chorale fantasia BWV Anh. II 71. The Rust items were acquired by the University-State Museum of Halle/Salle, and finally due to the fastidious work of two editors, Stephan Blaut and Michael Pacholke of Halle University, the chorale fantasia was authenticated and has become BWV 1128!
This edition is based on two 19th-century manuscripts: “Source A” by Rust and “Source B,” a copy made by Ernst Naumann sometime after 1890 in the collection of the Bach-Archiv Leipzig. Researchers, according to Schulze, are still hopeful that Kötschau’s copy survived WW II and is still to be found, perhaps in a Russian library.
On June 13, 2008, Ullrich Böhme, organist, St. Thomas, played the first Leipzig performance of BWV 1128 at the opening concert of the Bachfest, which included Bach’s Cantata 178 on the same chorale, sung by the St. Thomas Choir. The same day a CD by Rondeau Production with both compositions and works by Rust was released. The score by Ortus was published on June 10, showing how rapidly new works can be distributed worldwide.
The chorale still exists in German hymnals, but apparently has not survived in American Lutheran usage. The work, a large-scale fantasia believed to date from 1705–1710, is of moderate difficulty in four contrapuntal voices scored for Rückpositiv, Oberwerk and Pedal. After an introductory section, the ornamented chorale appears in the R.H. beginning with bar 12, proceeding verse by verse with interludes, chromaticism and echo sections. It concludes with a coda in a flurry typical of stylus phantasticus, all of which should make this “new work” very exciting indeed for Bach fans.

Bach, Johann Sebastian, Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält. The Newly Discovered Organ Work: Choralefantasia BWV 1128. Organ and choral works by Ammerbach, J. S. Bach, Rust, and Schein. Ullrich Böhme, organist, on the Bach Organ at Leipzig’s St. Thomas Church. St. Thomas Choir with the Gewandhaus Orchestra; Georg Christoph Biller, cantor and conductor. 2008, Rondeau Production ROP6023, 50 minutes, €15.95; brochure 39 pp.; <http://www.rondeau.de/&gt;.
Imagine being the organist of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, picking up the newspaper on March 16, 2008 and reading the headline, “Undiscovered Organ Work by Johann Sebastian Bach Found in Halle.” So Ullrich Böhme begins his very personal essay, “From Mühlhausen to St. Thomas in Leipzig” (brochure, pp. 6–7). He was further intrigued when he learned the work had been found among scores belonging to a predecessor at St. Thomas, Wilhelm Rust (organist, then cantor 1878–1892), and purchased for 2,500 euros by two scholars from nearby University of Halle. The paper claimed they “snatched away a true sensation from Leipzig,” when in fact the chorale had a close connection to Halle. The melody of the chorale had been written by Justus Jonas, a friend of Luther and the reformer of Halle serving as pastor of St. Mary’s.
The Bach-Archiv did not have a copy of the piece, but by April 28 Böhme received the score from the publisher, Ortus. He spent the next day at home studying and practicing, and then on evening of April 30 he played the work on the Bach Organ at St. Thomas, experimenting with tempos and registrations. It is probable that Bach played this piece himself, but he also may have given it to one of his sons or students to play on July 30, 1724 as a prelude to the Cantata BWV 178 on the same chorale for the eighth Sunday after Trinity. Böhme believes this is confirmed because in Bach’s time the choir and orchestra performed in the lower “Kammerton,” whereas the organs at St. Thomas were tuned a step higher in “Chorton,” so the pitches g- and a-minor match.
The work, a chorale fantasia, reflects influence of the North German composers Buxtehude, Reinken, and Bruhns. Three other examples of this genre by Bach are heard on the CD: the familiar Ein feste Burg (BWV 720), Christ lag in Todesbanden (BWV 718), and Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (BWV 739).
There is only one organ that Bach played (including those in Lübeck and Hanover) for which BWV 1128 could have been written because of the requirements for a Rückpositiv, Oberwerk, Pedal and the extent of the manual ranges. That is the Wender organ at St. Blasius in Mühlhausen, where Bach served between 1707 and 1708. The original organ has not survived, but a copy with the same specification was built in the late 1950s.
Additional compositions on the chorale, all by former St. Thomas organists or cantors, are a Tabulatur by Ammerbach (organist, 1550–1597); duet by St. Thomas Choir Boys from Opella nova by Johann Schein (cantor, 1616–1630); and Cantata BWV 178 by J. S. Bach (cantor, 1723–1750). Also included are two pieces by Wilhelm Rust (organist, 1878–80 and cantor, 1880–1892): Motet for Two Four-Voiced Choirs, op. 40, on “Aus der Tiefe ruf ich, Herr, zu dir” and an organ fantasia, op. 40/3 on “Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend.”
The handsome brochure is replete with photos and information in addition to Böhme’s personal account: fascinating program notes by Martin Petzoldt (Head of the Neue Bachgesellschaft and Professor of Systematic Theology at the University of Leipzig); cantata text for BWV 178; biographies for Böhme, Biller, Susanne Krumbiegel (alto), Martin Petzold (tenor), and Mathias Weichert (bass); background on the St. Thomas Choir and Gewandhaus Orchestra; and finally the specification and history of the 2000 Bach Organ by Gerald Woehl.
What is eminently apparent in these compositions and performances is a devotional consciousness of the text and the earnest intent to reflect its meaning. The performers are all steeped in the Bach milieu and tradition, performing Bach week after week, year after year in worship and concert. Böhme’s playing is equally elegant and eloquent, ever confident, yet always sensitive to the chorale text, realizing the Lutheran approach, which is never performance for its own sake, but music as a servant of theology and worship. While this CD largely features organ music and Böhme’s extraordinary playing, the other performers—St. Thomas Choir and Gewandhaus Orchestra under Cantor Georg Christoph Biller—are, as expected, exceptional. This CD and its brochure should certainly pique the interest, as Bach would say, of both “Kenner und Liebhaber” (professionals and music lovers).

Thanks to Ullrich Böhme, Organist, St. Thomas Church, Leipzig, who provided invaluable information, including contacts for getting the score and the CD within ten days of its first performance in Leipzig on June 13 and providing the specification of the Wender organ in Mühlhausen.

Musical examples used with permission from the publisher ortus musikverlag.

Donna M. Walters is a graduate of Marywood University and holds a master’s degree in musicology and vocal performance. She is presently a music instructor at Hanover Area High School in Pennsylvania, and is the author of a book of children’s poetry entitled “Dreamland Memories.” Mrs. Walters has been in “Who’s Who in American Education,” “Who’s Who in American Teachers,” and “Who’s Who in American Women.” Currently the music director for St. Casimir’s Church in Hanover Township, she lives in Pennsylvania with her husband Joseph.

Henri Mulet was born in the Eighteenth District of Paris, France, on October 17, 1878 at eight o’ clock in the evening. He was right-handed and grew to a height of five feet, six and one-half inches. Because of his birth date, he is considered a Middle-Impressionist composer. His parents, Gabriel Leon Mulet and Blanche Victoire Patie Mulet, were Catholic. They were considered first-rate performers, but neither of them composed. Gabriel was a pianist, a singer, and director of the choir at the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. Blanche was a professor of piano, a singer and an organist at the harmonium of the Basilique. Henri had a brother named Gabriel who died in Paris at the age of sixteen. The brother was quite intelligent and had received a bachelor’s degree by the time of his death. Henri received his early musical training from both his parents, including harmonium and piano lessons from his mother. He began to study the violoncello shortly after he began piano lessons. Other than the piano lessons he received from his mother, he did not continue his study of the piano and remained an average player throughout his life.1

Early life
Around 1888, Mulet began to substitute for his mother, playing the Benediction at the Basilique. He eventually succeeded his mother at the harmonium, but the position had a major drawback: the Basilique was still under construction and every time that rain fell, Mulet had to play beneath an umbrella. He hated the experience so much that later in life, whenever he heard the harmonium he would flee. Because of the great musical ability he displayed as a child, Mulet was enrolled at the Paris Conservatory around 1889. At this time, he was in the solfège class of Paul Rougnon. Rougnon found Mulet to have exceptional talent and enrolled him in the violoncello class of Jules Delsart, one of the most famous cellists of the time. Mulet was also a classmate of the virtuoso cellist Paul Bazilaire. The jury members were Salome, the organ composer, and the arranger
J. B. Weckerlin, whose Bergerette album for voice is still in print.2
In 1891, Mulet won the second prize for solfège. In 1892, he won the first accompaniment prize for violoncello. In 1893, the first three prizes for violoncello were awarded to Mulet (first), Herouard, and Hasselmann. Mulet was not happy with the prize because he felt that all he had to do to win was imitate his teacher. He no longer had an interest in the violoncello, because he felt that one had to be a “showoff” to be a great cellist and he flatly refused to go along with this idea. Even though he stopped taking lessons, he continued to play the cello until he was eighteen. At that time, he became interested in composition.
While at the Paris Conservatory, Mulet played the cello at concerts in the Theatre du Chatelet. Jules Delsart had formed a student trio consisting of a violinist (unknown), a cellist (Mulet), and a pianist (Alfred Cortot). They performed in prestigious homes in Paris, Rouen, and Versailles. Mulet also accompanied his parents when they sang at boarding houses to entertain the other guests who were on holiday at the seashore.

First compositional period
In autumn 1893, Mulet enrolled in the organ class of Widor (for which Vierne was a substitute) and the improvisation class of Guilmant. Widor was considered to be the best organist of the time and was thus nicknamed “The Emperor.” Between 1893 and 1896, Mulet studied composition and orchestration with Widor and harmony with composers Pugno and Leroux. In 1896, Mulet won the first prize in harmony. In 1897, he won the second prize for organ and improvisation. Vierne, in his memoirs, said that Mulet was “rattled by nerves” and that he could have won first prize had he not been. The jury members for this contest were Cesar Franck’s students Dallier and Pierné and the composers Samuel Rousseau, Pugno, and Gabriel Fauré. Although Mulet never knew Fauré personally, he greatly admired him. Also in 1897, Henri was employed by the Church of St. Pierre-du-Petit-Montrouge.3
In 1901 and 1902, Mulet played many recitals and organ dedications in Paris, the French countryside, and in Belgium. Mulet’s favorite composer was César Franck, and he played Franck’s works as often as he could. He also admired the Widor symphonies and played them often. (The Widor symphonies that are played today are the 1914 to 1918 revisions, which were published in 1920. Mulet played only the original versions).

Second compositional period
In 1902, Mulet ceased most of his activity with the outside world. A trip to Lombardy, Italy, during an August holiday may have had some bearing on this decision. His compositions also changed quite drastically. He was hostile to the changes and innovations of the twentieth century, and his style remained strongly rooted in the symphonic organ of Cavaillé-Coll of the nineteenth century. It was during this period that Mulet composed his Esquisses Byzantines (Byzantine Sketches), one of his most famous works. He spent the majority of his time in church meditating and playing the organ. He spoke little with his friends, who referred to him from this point as being secretive and mystical.
Mulet left his position at St. Pierre-du-Petit-Montrouge sometime in 1901, but because of the periodic destruction of church records, the exact dates of Mulet’s church positions are difficult to determine. After his position at St. Pierre-du-Petit-Montrouge, he held the position of organist at St. Marie-des-Batignolles, apparently until sometime in 1904. At some point in 1905, Mulet became the choir organist at St. Eustache, a post he held until 1907. He was joined at this time by Joseph Bonnet, who was also employed as another organist by the church. In 1907, Mulet became the organist at St. Roch. The organ, a two-manual instrument, had a direct influence on Mulet’s compositions. His writing from this period shows less intensity, but greater artistry. Up to this point, Mulet’s scores displayed an interest in calligraphy. Many of his titles were done in ornate script. After this time, it appears that he had lost interest in the subject.

Third compositional period
Around 1909, Mulet was associating with another composer, Albert Perilhou, who was a student of and a companion to Saint-Saëns. He may have met Perilhou through his friend Libert. In this same year, Mulet tried his hand at conducting the St. Nationale Orchestra. At that time, anyone who had both a score and the parts was allowed to conduct. The orchestra consisted of some eighty performers from the Colonne, Lamoreaux and the Schola Cantorum orchestras. Felix Raugel, who played the violin, said that Mulet was an excellent conductor and that he never let his nerves show while conducting; however, his autograph scores have all of the tempi re-marked in gigantic letters written in crayon. Mulet conducted only the St. Nationale Orchestra and only the premieres of his own compositions. He conducted between 1909 and 1914, the greater portion of his premieres taking place between 1909 and 1911. After the St. Nationale concerts had run their course, Mulet’s works were heard at the Colonne, Lamoreaux, and Inghelbrecht concerts. Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht (1880–1965) was the most important instrumental conductor of the time, and he promoted Mulet’s works more than any other conductor. On many occasions, he conducted Mulet’s works for radio concerts.
By 1909, Mulet’s social life consisted of attending intellectual gatherings comprising mostly teachers of English literature, religion, architecture, history, and music. The gatherings were held in private homes, and the guests were merely acquaintances and not close friends.
In 1910, Henri became a member of the Society des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique. He was admitted through Widor and Inghelbrecht. After July 1, 1910, Henri met the famous choral conductor Felix Raugel at the home of Libert. Raugel, a former student of Libert, became Henri’s second closest friend. Raugel said of Henri: “ . . . he hardly ever spoke, and he was very reserved and mystical.” He never knew Henri’s entire compositional output because Henri never spoke of his music. Raugel greatly appreciated what little he understood of Henri and was eager to write several articles about him for various dictionaries. He also conducted Henri’s early choral work, Laudate Dominum, quite often at St. Eustache and St. Honoré d’Eylan. Raugel said that he had also heard Mulet improvise and that he was expert at it.

Married life
It was at one of these gatherings that Mulet met his future wife, Isabelle Marie Board Rochereau. She was born in Lougne in the département of Maine-et-Loire on August 7, 1878. After their initial meeting, Isabelle joined the choir of St. Roch so that she could see Henri quite often. She also saw Mulet conduct in 1909 and was very impressed. Henri courted Isabelle for about one year, and they were married at St. Elizabeth’s Church, Place de la Republique in the Eleventh District of Paris on July 12, 1910. The organist at the wedding ceremony was Joseph Boulnois, to whom Marcel Dupré dedicated the third Prelude and Fugue from his opus 7. The Mulets seemed to have chosen this church out of convenience, as their address after the marriage was 28 Place de la Republique. Prior to his marriage, Henri’s address was 26 rue du 4 Septembre, Paris 2.
Within a year of the marriage, Henri composed four orchestral sketches that he intended to orchestrate. When the sketches were finished, he went to see about conducting one of his works and was flatly refused. Raugel said, “ . . . after 1910, it became more difficult to conduct or to have one’s pieces performed by an orchestra.”4 Because of this, Mulet stopped composing in 1911. Raugel continues, “Prior to 1911, if one felt talented, he had only to climb to the podium.” This is how Berlioz, Busser, Messager, Pasdeloup, Colonne, Lamoreaux, Rheue-Baton, Inghelbrecht, Gaubert, and he (Raugel) started. During the time of Gaubert, conducting classes were introduced.
In 1911, Mulet transcribed the four sketches along with an earlier unperformed orchestral work for the harmonium in a desperate attempt to have his music performed. He submitted some of these pieces to a publisher of religious music, Abbot Delepine, who liked Mulet’s music, and the two became friends.Henri’s student, Henri Heurtel, stated that Isabelle could have pushed Henri to compose after 1911, but she saw no reason for doing so. Isabelle was not a musician, did not understand music, and had no interest in it. She did, however, have an interest in business and, at some time between 1911 and 1913, she convinced Henri to open a real estate office. Henri, however, had no talent for business, and it quickly failed.
Isabelle and her husband did not go out a great deal after they were married. Her explanation for this was that Henri had done many things before the marriage; he did, however, take her to see one opera (Felix Raugel said that Henri sometimes went to hear the performances by the Society of Concerts).5 Henri also forbade Isabelle to dance, which she never understood, but she respected his wishes. At some point, Henri acquired a practice pipe organ so that he no longer had to practice at the churches where he was employed. Because Henri did his practicing at home, Isabelle offered this as an explanation as to why Henri did not marry a musician. She said, “You must understand that a man like my husband who often had to stay home to work on the organ pieces that he played every Sunday at the eleven o’ clock mass could not marry a piano teacher or a singing teacher. He did not like to work on his organ studies while having, in the next room, the stumbling playing or singing of a pupil.”6 At the time of his marriage, Henri still had his cello, although he had not played it for some years. Sometime afterward, he apparently gave it to his former classmate, Hasselmann.

The mystic, Mulet
Mulet improvised in the manner of César Franck. The Mulets and the Raugels often had lunch at the Liberts’ home, and the Raugels also accompanied the Mulets on their month-long holidays in August. Henri owned a small Renault, and he always did the driving. Raugel said that they always visited the scenic rural areas. The countryside had a profound affect upon Henri’s composing.7
When Henri premiered his Fantasie Pastorale, a symphonic poem for orchestra, on May 20, 1911, a review in the Comœdia Illustré stated that it was “the most interesting of the new works, containing spontaneity, drive, vigor, and pace. The work was quite dramatic, developed, and descriptive; moreover, it was well-orchestrated, calling up impressions Mulet felt upon looking at the countryside of the Haute Durance.” The motto of the work is also quoted, “Smiling in the sun or tragic under the storm.” This composition is the best remembered of the missing works. Raugel stated that after Mulet ceased to compose in 1911, he amused himself with his thought and would sit, meditating, without saying anything. He was very reticent and months and years went by in silence.

The Niedermeyer School
From 1911–1922 and from 1922–1936, Henri was employed at St. Phillipe-du-Roule, apparently in two different positions. In 1913, Henri became a professor at the Niedermeyer School in Paris. He acquired the position through Libert, who was teaching piano there. At the time that Henri joined the faculty, the school was being run by Niedermeyer’s granddaughter and her husband, Henry Heurtel, and by his grandson, Lefebvre. The Heurtels had eight children who assisted in administrative duties. At one time, Gabriel Fauré was connected to the school, and the Niedermeyers were very close to him. Fauré was godfather to one of the Heurtel daughters.
Two of the Heurtels’ eight children studied the organ with Mulet: Henri Heurtel and one of his sisters. Henri was the only student of Mulet’s that Isabelle ever knew. She knew the Heurtel family and was invited by Mrs. Heurtel to visit. Apart from the Raugels, the Liberts, and the Heurtels, Isabelle appears to have met very few of Mulet’s professional friends and acquaintances. She never met Joseph Bonnet, despite his and Mulet’s close friendship.
At the Niedermeyer School, Henri taught organ, cello, and solfège. He was noted for his ability to sing solfège, but he never sang anything else. He had even directed choirs without singing a note, a practice also carried out by Raugel. He gave only a few cello lessons at the school and never played at these lessons. This practice stemmed from his bitterness at having imitated Delsart’s playing. He never lost the fear that his students would imitate him and he always said, “You must not imitate anyone; you must be personal.”8
Even though the Niedermeyer School had a varied curriculum, it was considered primarily a school for serious organists. When Henri joined the faculty, its members did not speak with one another; however, Mulet’s earlier acquaintance, Bellenot, and a friend, Albert Perilhou, taught there as well. Henri Heurtel said that nothing was known of the teachers’ private lives because they never discussed their affairs with their students; however, Felix Raugel said that Perilhou was a former student of and companion to Saint-Saëns. He states that Saint-Saëns would visit Perilhou at the Church of St. Severin, where the latter was organist. Saint-Saëns would seat himself at the organ and, at seventy years of age, would improvise like a young man. Raugel also said that Saint-Saëns would improvise an entire fantasy. Additionally, Raugel stated that even though Saint-Saëns had a great talent for improvisation, he hated César Franck and remained envious of Franck until he died. Raugel said that Franck’s music did not become popular until 1900, and the more that Franck’s music was performed, the more bitter Saint-Saëns became.9
Another teacher at the Niedermeyer School was Henri Dallier, who had studied with Franck. It is surprising that Mulet and Dallier remained only acquaintances, because Dallier primarily played Franck’s music, which Henri greatly admired. Dallier’s students called him “The Terror of the Pedals.” Dallier had been a concert pianist and would tell his students that the fourth finger is the most important aspect of playing. Dallier eventually adopted the mystic style of Mulet; when this occurred, he was rejected by his composition students at the Paris Conservatory. They labeled him a bore.
Henri Heurtel, who appears to have been Mulet’s most successful student, said, “Mulet was always very reserved and quiet and never talked about himself or about other people. It was difficult to know what he was thinking about anyone. Mulet never boasted about the success of having his orchestral works performed at the great concerts, and he never talked outside of lessons. He was very witty and joked with a straight face.”10 According to Heurtel, Henri was an excellent organ professor. He never allowed a student to go on with a piece if there was one wrong note. As with cello lessons, he never played the organ for his students. Mulet said, “The secret to learning a piece (he used the Bach Fantasy and Fugue as an example) is to let it ripen,” meaning to work it out for a long time with great care. He also told his students that to play in church, a repertoire of at least fifty major compositions was necessary. Henri’s best-remembered quotation was “Time is precious, for tomorrow you will be seventy years old.”11

Final appearance as conductor
In 1937, Heurtel succeeded Libert as organist at the Basilica of St. Denis and held that position until 1977. Libert had held the post from 1896 to 1937. On May 17, 1914, Mulet made his final appearance as a conductor with the premiere of Le Talion, a song written in declamatory style. It was sung by Georges Mary, a baritone whom Mulet frequently employed for his oratorio concerts. As Mulet became older, he became more and more demanding of his students, to the point that they did not want to attend lessons. Henri Heurtel’s sister would beg her mother to “ . . . spare her this torture.” Her brother said that she cried at every lesson; but one day, she did exactly what Mulet wanted and they became good friends. He used to call her “The Princess.”

Mulet’s bitterness
Heurtel stated that Henri’s bitterness was a result of his observation that high art was on the decline, principally because the younger organists broke the tradition of playing legato at an allegro tempo. Mulet remained strongly enmeshed in the style of the symphonic Cavaillé-Coll organ of the nineteenth century. He detested the playing of Marcel Dupré and considered Joseph Bonnet to be one of the last performers to play the organ correctly with excellent technique. Heurtel himself stated that “ . . . modern performers get drunk on the speed they can attain by using the wrong approach.”12
Two additional things that affected Mulet are revealed in an incident that occurred when Henri Heurtel’s mother questioned Mulet as to why he gave up composing. Mulet was said to have lost his great reserve, showed great bitterness and replied, “ . . . cartloads of music in France are waiting to be played and published. It is not worth the trouble of writing if the music will not be played.”
After 1918, it was very difficult to have music published in France. Raugel said that all of the Parisian musicians ignored Mulet’s music, and he came to hate Paris. After 1911, Mulet displayed a rather overwhelming bitterness. Isabelle Mulet said that Henri never discussed any of these affairs with her. They had no children, and each had their own separate lifestyles. She said that her husband loved her very much, but she never completely understood him. She said of Henri, “ . . . he was like in a dream-world, and later, feeling that he had failed, Henri became even more withdrawn.” She added that he was never really content. The only time that he appeared to be happy was when he was driving somewhere or was on holiday. Isabelle said that driving gave him the greatest pleasure and only then did he become relaxed and sociable; otherwise, he remained very much to himself.13
Around 1914, the Mulets moved to the town of Triel-sur-Seine, which is about thirty-five kilometers from Paris. Between 1914 and 1924, Henri, who had no relatives outside of Paris, rarely returned to the city, except when he visited his paternal grandfather. These visits were infrequent. In 1914, Vierne dedicated his Canon (No. 6 from Twenty-four Pieces in Free Style for Harmonium and Organ) to Mulet. This appears to be the only published work ever dedicated to him.

Mulet’s lectures
Sometime between the 26th and the 31st of July in 1921, Henri gave two lectures to the General Congress of Sacred Music, which took place in Strasbourg, Germany. The members included many Parisian musicians including Raugel, Gabriel Pierné, Henri Rabauch, Samuel Rosseau, Eugène Gigout (who also taught at the Niedermeyer School), and Vincent D’Indy. One lecture dealt solely with the technical placement of pistons on organ consoles and the pitch arrangements for mixtures, the other was titled “The Harmful and Anti-religious Tendencies of the Organ.” This lecture dealt with the so-called “French Registration” and attacked some other items including the tremolo. Below is an excerpt of that lecture:

The Harmful and Anti-religious
Tendencies of the Organ
by Henri Mulet
It is very probable that the invention of the organ occurred from the need that one try to imitate the wind instruments by mechanical means, undoubtedly to save the human soul. The result was rather satisfactory, but it contained a surprise: an inert sound. The inertia of the sound of the organ is its fuel, it is accompanied by homogeneity of duration, of intense stability and creates a sound in the world a world apart. Those who like the Organ like its inertia. If the Organ were not inert any more, it would not be the Organ. The Organ recalls the timbre of certain instruments. It does not imitate them. This is not its role. It has better to do. It is self-sufficient because it is as rich as the richest orchestra. The orchestra is a painting; the organ is stained glass. Its sounds of calmness, imposing and seizing, bathe the atmosphere of our cathedrals; just as the lights of our stained glass, sharp as well as ever so soft, induce faithful meditation. Like stained glass, the organ has its colors. One can say, if one wanted, that the flutes are blue, the reeds red, the pleins jeux yellow, the cornets purple, and the gambas green. As in the stained glass, this inertia precisely constitutes the base of any beauty of the organ. If it did not exist, it would have to be invented. Also, it is necessary to deplore the fact that, from time immemorial, it was people who, not appreciative of this beautiful inertia of the sound, always worked to fight it.
The tremolo does not have any other origin than this, but its beats, being always equal to themselves, produce another kind of inertia which without the good qualities all claimed, has only the disadvantages of primitive inertia.
Fortunately, there are a few organists in France who love the organ in the old manner, who never play transcriptions (such as the overture to Tannhauser) and who will not allow our stained glass to be demolished in order to put in its place a sort of “cinema-organ-orchestra,” the organ of the Antichrist. These orchestral tendencies are, moreover, illogical and one is in vain pursuit of a phantom.
Imitating instruments, even perfectly, is not at all the same as imitating the orchestra. Even if, impossibly, the inertia of sound were completely overcome, you would still have to execute the notes. Those who are generous enough to believe that this has been accomplished make us think that they have never read an orchestra score.
In order to merely play the notes, we would have to have 20 hands and as many keyboards. To make the nuances, we would need at least 20 swell boxes. Even then, it would not be exact, because the instruments of the orchestra change timbre when they change intensity. You can close an organ trumpet in a box, but it will never be a true trumpet pianissimo.14

Mulet, the organist
In 1921, Mulet left his post at St. Roch and the following year became the titular organist at St. Phillipe-du-Roule. He played all of his organ works at this church on a Cavaillé-Coll-Mutin built in 1903. It was noted by the abbot of St. Philippe that Mulet’s playing was well-appreciated among the parishioners.
Shortly after Mulet accepted this position, his student, Henri Heurtel, became his assistant for one year, pulling stops for Mulet’s performances. This seems odd, since Mulet lectured against having an assistant while performing. Heurtel said that Mulet always practiced at home and no one but Isabelle knew how much time he spent at the organ. While at his post at St. Philippe, Mulet improvised to fill in the gaps at the services. Heurtel said that he never improvised a prelude or a postlude. Heurtel questioned Mulet as to how one learned to improvise. Henri answered that, “ . . . one has to be born with the gift of improvisation which cannot be learned under any circumstances.” Henri was in disagreement with what Dupré and others termed “improvising.” He felt that improvising was spontaneous, and that the performer developed ideas immediately, rarely remembering what he had played. Raugel said, “ . . . when Dupré was in his early twenties, he could improvise only short stanzas. He planned everything in advance and memorized it. On one of his early concert tours, he declined to improvise, something that one possessing the true gift would never do.”
The late composer, Georges Migot (1891–1976), who was a contemporary of the last of the French Impressionists, confirms this: “ . . . none of them (referring to Dupré and others) could improvise spontaneously; everything was planned in advance.” Vierne wrote of Mulet, “ . . . Mulet of St.-Phillipe-du-Roule, was a musical personality of the sharpest. He was a solid virtuoso and a beautiful improviser. . . . Mulet has written some very significant pieces which have justly become part of the repertoire for very serious organists.” Isabelle Mulet said of her husband, “ . . . if he had written down all of the improvisations that he played on different occasions, he would have been renowned.”
In 1922, Paul Bedouin became the choir organist at St. Phillipe-du-Roule. Bedouin, who was also a pianist, was a student of Vierne and Gigout and knew Felix Raugel. Despite Bedouin’s association with Mulet’s colleagues, he said that he did not see Mulet often at that time.During the summer of 1923, Mulet met the Canadian-born organist Lynnwood Farnam (1885–1930) through his friend, Libert. Farnam was to achieve considerable success in the United States, especially in New York City. Farnam was studying with Libert while the latter was assisting Widor at the Conservatory of Fontainebleau. Also, at this time, Mulet had his photograph taken with American organist and conductor, Albert Riemenschneider (1878–1950), who often vacationed in France. It seems likely that Mulet knew Riemenschneider from the time that Albert studied with Widor and Guilmant.
From 1924 to 1931, Mulet taught at the Schola Cantorum in Paris as well as at the Niedermeyer School. He may also have done some substitute teaching at the Conservatory of Fontainebleau, but this has not been substantiated. During this time, Mulet received correspondence from two parishioners of St. Phillipe-du-Roule. One, dated January 26, 1926 reads:

Sir:
I should like to ask you for some information. I should be very grateful if you could give it to me. Though I have not had the honor of meeting you, I have often had the pleasure of hearing you play on Sundays at St. Phillipe’s. Last Sunday, January 24th, you played a piece which I would like to know the name of. It must be by Franck, probably.
Thanking you in advance,
I remain very truly yours,
Y. Reul
RSVP
PS. You played the piece in question at the end of the 10:30 mass.

The other letter, which is not dated, reads:

Mr. Georges Thomas would be very grateful to the organist of St. Phillipe-du-Roule for the title of the piece which he played in a most charming manner, on Sunday, January 8th at the 11:30 mass right after the sermon; and requests, if this is not too much trouble, to ask that he leave the title for him at No. 1 Courcelles Street, just a step or two from St. Philippe’s.

(This card was probably written in 1928, as January 8th fell on a Sunday in that year).
In June of 1927, Mulet donated his practice organ to the Gothic church of St. Martin in Triel-sur-Seine. Both Raugel and he gave a dedicatory concert on Sunday, June 26, 1927. Mulet played César Franck’s Choral No. 3, J. S. Bach’s Prelude in E Minor, an excerpt from Widor’s Seventh Symphony, and the Buxtehude Fugue in C Major. Raugel then directed the choir from St. Eustache in works by Pitoni, Marcello, Copulet, Fauré, and Psalm Fifteen by Franck.
Around 1928, the publisher Emile Leduc went with his son, Gilbert, to Triel-sur-Seine to meet with Mulet. (The Leduc Publishing House was founded by Alphonse Leduc in 1848 and was taken over by Emile in 1904 after Alphonse’s death.) Raugel said that Mulet had been at odds with the publishing company for years. When the Esquisses Byzantines was published in 1920, Mulet was given a seventy-dollar advance payment for royalties, but he was never paid another penny, despite the fact that thousands of copies of the collection had been sold. Mulet was well aware of the sales, because Leduc had to file them with the French Composer’s Society. Raugel said that Mulet was like a “shorn lamb” and that composers who dealt with Leduc had to “know how to defend themselves.”15
The April 30, 1930 issue of Le Monde Musicale contained an article about Mulet written by Charles Tournemire: “Henri Mulet, strange and great artist, caught up by a mystical ideal. Calm improviser, sometimes lively, religious. Artist worthy of the Middle Ages, which, in his case, does not exclude the feeling of understanding modern art. Mysterious thinker.”
In 1932, a student of César Franck’s, Louis de Serres, founded the Ecole César Franck. Mulet taught there sometime between 1932 and 1937, along with his friends Vierne, Bonnet, and Bedouin. Felix Raugel said that Mulet made use of Marcel Dupré’s compositions for teaching purposes and that he appreciated their technical properties, especially the ostinati; however, Raugel further states that Mulet found little aesthetic worth in these pieces and refused to play them.16 In 1934, Mulet left the Niedermeyer School because it was too difficult for him to climb the hill on which it stood. The school continued to operate until the end of World War II, when it ran out of funds.
During the 1930s, Bedouin frequently visited the Mulets at his home. Bedouin wrote, “He (Mulet) always greeted me in a very friendly manner when I used to go with my little family to visit him at Triel-sur-Seine where he lived.”17 At some point, Mulet met the famed teacher, Nadia Boulanger. She said of Mulet that she did not really know him, but when they were introduced, “He was that most cordial one.” She added that his talent was widely recognized.18
In 1936, Désiré Inghelbrecht directed Mulet’s Petit Suite sur des Airs Populaires Français, which was played by Inghelbrecht’s radio orchestra. A postcard sent to Mulet by the orchestra’s secretary reads:
15 July 1936
Dear Sir:
Your Petit Suite sur des Airs Populaires Français will conclude the program of the Federal Broadcast of Tuesday, July 21st. Mr. Inghelbrecht has set the rehearsals of your work as follows: Saturday, July 18th at 9:00 AM Salle Gareau and the following Tuesday, the 21st after the intermission, Salle Gareau, also, that is to say at 10:45 AM. At the dress rehearsal in the afternoon, he will see the whole program in order, that is to say that you will be on supposedly toward 4:30 PM. Since the concert is public, I will have at your disposal the number of tickets that you might desire.19

After the performance, Inghelbrecht returned this score to Mulet along with two other orchestral works entitled Souvenirs de Lorin Bardie. Inghelbrecht appears to have had possession of these scores from 1911 until 1936. Also in 1936, Mulet had a small article written about him in an unidentified American music magazine. Mulet kept a copy of the article, which was written by a Dr. G. Bedart. It proved to be quite inaccurate except for his having quoted Mulet as hating “Vainglory.” (In 1921, Mulet had lectured against an article that Bedart had written, labeling Bedart as a “careless thinker.”)

Retirement
In 1937, Mulet felt forced to retire from his musical life in Paris. His feelings of failure coupled with his notion that the “moderns” did not question the validity of ideas were both prevailing influences in his decision; but the final blow came from the church authorities of St. Phillipe-du-Roule. Mulet was informed that “modern” music was favored in place of Franck, Widor, Bach, Buxtehude, or any other master composer whose works were in the standard organ repertoire. By coincidence, Mulet received an inheritance at this time, and he officially retired from St. Philippe on Easter Sunday, March 28, 1937. The postlude was Widor’s Toccata from the Fifth Symphony. Michael Boulnois, the son of organist Joseph Boulnois, was hired to succeed Mulet. He was present at the Easter service and said that Mulet played the Toccata brilliantly.
Before leaving Paris, Mulet gave all of his keyboard music to Paul Bedouin. Bedouin said the music was more or less ruined from having been used so frequently. Mulet gave the three orchestral scores returned by Inghelbrecht in 1936 to Raugel in the hope that he (Raugel) could get them performed.
After his retirement, Henri moved with his wife, her sister, and her mother to a small home in Draguignan, which is in Provence. Their home overlooked the beach at Frejus on the Mediterranean Sea. Before moving, Mulet had added his new address to the title page of his orchestral work Dans le Vallée du Tombeau (In the Valley of the Tomb). “Dans” is an interesting piece to choose to list what was to be the last place where Mulet would live.

The final move
Henri then became the organist at the Cathedral of Draguignan—a position that, for Mulet, proved to be an ordeal, because the organ contained every one of the faults that he had argued against in his 1931 lecture. The instrument was a two-manual Merklin built in 1888. It was unified and did not have one mixture or one mutation rank and the pedalboard only went up to D2. Henri called this organ “The Bagpipes.” While at Draguignan, Henri wrote only to Raugel and Bedouin. Libert had died in 1937, and his position at St. Denis was given to Henri Heurtel, the student of both Libert and Mulet. Of Henri’s correspondence, only one letter has been preserved. It was sent to Felix Raugel, who said that this was the only letter in which Henri exposed his thoughts, although Raugel did not seem to understand it completely:
7 August 1946
My Very Dear Friend,
Three times you have written me and I have not answered! I am very ashamed and I ask your forgiveness. I am down in the dumps, a depression as big as an elephant, and this is what has kept me from writing because it stops up my brain.
You are singing the Lamentations. I don’t have the courage to sing the Ténèbre. Silence alone . . .
All that, after all, is of no importance and surely happens for our greater good. Is it to keep us from missing the life of this lower world? Perhaps, but in any case, this is the result.
We are going to die tomorrow, our agony is long and hard, but the important thing is to have our passport in order. All the rest is beneath our attention. Let us forget, then, the earth and especially its horrible inhabitants. And let us think of that “other world” where the sea is no longer. But I think that there will be beautiful lakes and beautiful mountains and no radio [referred to as T.S.F. . . . Mulet did not like the change to popular music on the radio!]. To reach it we travel in fourth class, at least! But we are being too difficult.
I’ve received nothing from Leduc. He said that he would send the E. B. [Esquisses Byzantines] but he has done nothing about it. He is worthy of being a Dracenois [interpreted by Raugel as being a resident of Draguignan] but it is of no great misfortune and if you meet him, you can tell him that I don’t give a damn . . . [written je m’en f . . . ] Doubtless I would not have done anything about it. Rework them, these pieces? I would not have had the courage because that would be so useless. [Mulet was asked to rewrite his E.B. so that Leduc could gain a new copyright on the collection.] The “Bagpipes” [the Merklin organ] here does not interest me at all and for me it is a punishment (or penance) to go to work there every Sunday. I do it only as penance, just as I do everything else.
Take courage, salvation is perhaps nearer than we think. My best wishes to both of you, Henri Mulet. [Oddly, in the letter, the body is very clear, yet the signature is nearly illegible.]

In 1955, Mulet found a summer home for Paul Bedouin in Draguignan, where Bedouin visited Mulet every summer. Because Bedouin visited every season, he and Mulet did not correspond. Despite their long friendship, Bedouin said that Mulet was a mystic and that he (Mulet) never confided in him. Bedouin summed up their relationship by saying that “Henri Mulet, in spite of his kindness, his willingness to please, never completely abandoned a certain reserve. He did not give himself willingly. He was an interior man.”20
In 1956, the Cathedral of Draguignan was closed for major renovation; consequently, Henri faced another retirement. Isabelle’s sister and mother appear to have died before 1959. In that year, Henri became quite ill and needed the assistance of a cane for mobility. He had dizzy spells and, at one time, he fell his entire length on the ground. Later, he had no memory of the dizzy spell or the fall. Because of this incident, the Mulets moved to the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor in Draquine between late October and December of 1959. Henri had become so ill after his arrival that he was unable to play. It was discovered that Henri was also afflicted with otosclerosis, a genetic illness which causes the bone in the inner ear to grow. This disease will eventually cause deafness, a ringing in the ears and a softening of the voice. At that time, there was no cure.
Henri remained ill for seven years. The Little Sisters said that during this time he cared only about his wife whom he loved very much. On the morning of September 20, 1967, Henri complained of back pain and his doctor was unable to offer him any relief. At nine o’clock AM, he muttered “I am dying,” and he had a dizzy spell during which he lost consciousness. The doctors were unable to revive him and he died at 10:45 AM. Isabelle said that she believed that he died of an internal hemorrhage. He was buried at the local cemetery in Draguignan. Raugel said that Henri died in silence. No obituary was ever published in any French newspaper.
Sometime after Henri’s death, a letter written by some unknown person (Isabelle could not remember the name) was forwarded to Isabelle requesting information from the authorities of St. Philippe-du-Roule about her husband. The authorities of St. Philippe-du-Roule were unable to remember the dates of Henri’s employment. Ironically, the Abbot had once written that Henri was very much appreciated.
In the March 1968 issue of The Diapason (p. 17) an article was published about Henri’s death, which resulted in Isabelle’s reception of one letter of condolence, sent from a Mr. Jerry Koontz of Washington State, USA. Sometime between 1968 and 1972, Isabelle moved to the convent in Nice. She no longer heard from Bedouin, but the Raugels paid her a surprise visit. Isabelle had a cousin in Paris with whom she kept in touch until the early 1970s. Isabelle became increasingly deaf and blind. Between 1967 and 1975, she read books on archeological findings and the history of France. She also corresponded with the French Society of Archeology. Additionally, Isabelle collected stamps, which were sold to raise money for missionaries in Africa.
By 1975, Isabelle was totally blind and could not read or write. She returned to the convent at Draguignan. The sisters said that she was always an interesting conversationalist, even though there was an occasional language barrier. Many of the sisters were from the United States and were not well versed in the French language. Around November of 1976, Isabelle broke her leg. She never recovered from the trauma of the accident and she died on March 24, 1977.
Henri Mulet had his photograph taken at least five times. There is an undated photograph from his student days that was owned by Felix Raugel. One appeared in the 1910 issue of the Comœdia Illustré. A third was taken with Albert Riemenschneider on the steps of St. Philippe-du-Roule during the 1920s. The fourth photograph was published in the 1936 article by Dr. Bedart. The final photograph is a color picture taken by a cousin of Henri between August 7 and October 17, 1959. According to Isabelle, it was taken “ . . . after a good lunch in the garden of the hotel in Draguignan.”

Mulet, the enigma
By nature of his birth, Henri stands as a Middle Impressionist, if Henri Dallier (b. 1849) is taken as the first French Impressionist and Maurice Duruflé (b. 1902) is taken as the last French Impressionist. Although Mulet lived for 88 years, he composed for only fifteen of them, between 1896 and 1911. Even though this is a relatively brief time, his compositions can be divided into three periods such as those of other composers who wrote over their entire lives.
Because Mulet never dated anything and often published his compositions years after they were written, it is impossible to make a chronological arrangement for some years. The order given is based upon his compositional traits. The three periods range from c. 1896 to c. 1902, c. 1903 to c. 1909, and c. 1909 to c. 1911.
Very few autograph scores have survived, because Mulet simply threw them away when the pieces were published. At present, the author has two of the remaining autograph scores in her possession: Offertoire sur un Alleluia Grégorien and Carillon-Sortie. He only retained originals when the printed scores contained a multitude of errors. For the most part, Mulet did not own copies of his own works. As of the present, eight scores have disappeared, seven of which were written in his third period. Six of these were in the possession of Raugel at one time, but when Raugel returned them to Mulet in 1937, Mulet loaned them to some unknown person who claimed the ability to get them performed. They disappeared and have still to be recovered. As with the scores of many other composers, they may someday be found in some Parisian attic. Of the other missing scores, one was an opera burned by Isabelle at Henri’s request and the other simply went out of print. Although the scores were lost, eight-measure themes to each work were registered with the French Composer’s Society.21
Isabelle said that Henri had no set time for composing. Mulet himself stated that “One composes when seized by the spirit. To be inspired is the most important thing.” Felix Raugel said that Mulet would not permit himself to be influenced by any other composer.22
The music of Henri Mulet is unique. Mulet achieved much tension between any two notes. As a result, Mulet was an extremely efficient and concise composer. Not one note can be extracted from a Mulet piece without causing major disruption of the musical line. According to his friends and his wife, Mulet had to struggle for every idea that came to him; therefore, even though Mulet had an incredible depth of inspiration, he cannot be classified as a compositional genius. The master composers always had a flood of ideas that came rapidly. Henri never achieved this.
When Mulet worked on the autograph scores of his first period, he was fascinated by calligraphy. Three types of writing appear on his scores. The titles are written very thickly with ornaments. Other comments are much smaller and much less ornamental. In the organ manuscript Offertoire, the registrations appear in his normal handwriting. In comparing Mulet’s scores to those of master composers of the time, none other took the time to write things out so carefully.
Mulet’s attention to detail yielded extraordinarily balanced musical parts. His music became more and more flawless, especially in his second period compositions. These are written completely in contrary motion, a trait that is rather unusual for an Impressionist.
Where Mulet succeeded so flawlessly in sound, he was quite the opposite when it came to copying out his scores. He composed sketches first and then transferred his works to an actual autograph score. He thought nothing of putting an oboe part on a clarinet line, he never repaired errors when a piece was published, nor did he bother to tell anyone about the mistakes in his printed scores.
Henri Mulet will probably remain enigmatic in the world of music. Because of his lack of correspondence, few friends, and solitary lifestyle, information regarding his life is limited. The information in this article was gleaned from correspondence to his wife Isabelle, the French Composer’s Society, the Little Sisters of the Poor, Paul Bedouin, Henri Heurtel, and from Felix Raugel. Hopefully, the little information that is available will offer some insight into his life and will elevate his much-deserved standing in the world of classical composers.

Copies of Mulet’s extant works are available from the author at a nominal fee. Send e-mail to <[email protected]> for a list of works and details about ordering.

Author’s note:
This project was begun in the late 1960s by Kenneth Saslaw, who was a doctoral student at the University of Michigan. Kenneth was my vocal coach for many years, and when, at age 35, he lay on his deathbed, he asked me to complete the work and have it published. He had spent a great deal of time corresponding with the above-mentioned people to track down what information was available about Mulet, to the extent that the French Society of Composers and Musicians named him the world authority on Mulet. I acquired the materials several years after his death. The task of sorting through letters and notes was monumental, as I had to spend many hours peering at his handwritten notes with a magnifying glass in order to decipher them. As far as I know, the information is accurate. Kenneth has finally gotten his wish; may he rest in peace.

The Technical and Aesthetic Legacy of Carl Weinrich

In 1960, in an article about Glenn Gould for The New Yorker
magazine, Joseph Roddy harnesses Nietzsche's terms to describe a dichotomy he
perceives in the composition and the playing of piano music. Eighteenth-century
keyboard compositions "are Apollonian, adhering to classical formality and
reserve; those of the nineteenth century are Dionysiac, being notable for
poetic mood and emotional thunder." Keyboard compositions of the twentieth
century, "for all their involutions, have shown a tendency to return to
the Apollonian ideal."2 Rather than providing a clear example of either
Apollonian or Dionysiac tendencies, Glenn Gould's life and art enclose a
mesmeric opposition of both classical and romantic components: Dionysiac
frenzies during performance, behavior for which he became legend, and
Apollonian compositions and interpretations which are "essentially
dispassionate." It was Gould's interpretation of Bach's "highly Apollonian"
Goldberg Variations which established the young Canadian as a top-ranking
pianist. Playing the Variations, Gould accomplishes his technically flawless
performance, "lean, aloof and fleet," in ten minutes and twenty-one
seconds less than it took Wanda Landowska to complete her highly Dionysiac
performance of the same work.3

Joseph Roddy's description of Glenn Gould and his music
suggests a startling similarity to the Apollonian style and taste of Carl
Weinrich, organist and choirmaster of Princeton University from 1943 to his
retirement in 1973. There are, of course, many significant differences between
the two men.  Gould the pianist was
famous for his histrionics, swaying and singing and conducting himself as he
played. Weinrich the organist was just as known for a calm, classical manner,
an almost unnerving physical control which he exercised even during the music's
most intense passages.4 But, as we shall see, when Carl Weinrich compiled his
own canon of organ music, his choices were very like what the younger Gould
came to champion:  the music of
Sweelinck, of Bach, of Hindemith, of Krenek. In addition, few words could
better describe Carl Weinrich's playing than those applied to Glenn Gould:
"lean, aloof, fleet." And if Gould had his Van Cliburn, so, too,
Weinrich had his artistic antipodes. From his own era sprang the Dionysiac
Virgil Fox, whose preconcert foreplay, cavalier treatment of the printed score,
and wild technical high jinks asserted a violent contrast to Weinrich's
Apollonian creed. Most often compared with Weinrich was his exact contemporary,
E. Power Biggs, whose playing, though technically less precise than Weinrich's,
could hardly be called Dionysiac. Biggs's dedication to popularizing the organ,
however, eventually bred in him a Dionysian's taste, music of uneven artistic
merit from all periods, chosen because it appealed to the untrained listener.
In our own era, Anthony Newman, Simon Preston and Diane Bish are only a few of
the many outstanding Dionysiac recitalists.

Carl Weinrich's importance in American organ music, however,
reached far beyond the university where he made his home. Weinrich was both a
traditionalist and a revolutionary, the former because he chose to concentrate
his energies on the works of Bach, the latter because he was one of a group of
American organists who in this century thoroughly altered American practices of
organ playing and building.5 But what was Weinrich's method and how did he
acquire it?

Lynnwood Farnam: Beauty with Discipline

When Carl Weinrich began in earnest his study of organ in
the 1920s, instruments, the technique of playing, and attitudes toward organ
literature differed greatly from today's prevailing notions. Mechanically
sluggish consoles and the romantic organ's preponderance of 8¢ diapasons
and strings made intricate passages, particularly in the music of J.S. Bach,
difficult to hear and hence not rewarding to master.  Indeed, Bach's famous remark, "you need only to hit the
right notes at the right moment and the instrument does the rest"6
alleged, when Carl Weinrich began his career, not irony and understatement, but
impossibility. Lists of organ stops from those years read like a romantic
orchestral fantasy: flauto amabile, tuba mirabile, philomela. Weinrich was one
of a group of energetic, musically dissatisfied young organists who gathered
about the great teacher and player, Lynnwood Farnam, organist at the Church of
the Holy Communion in New York City until his death in 1930. Together they
reformed and refashioned American organ playing.7

As the first step toward unlocking music's subjective
components or its effect upon the soul, Lynnwood Farnam directed his students'
physical dexterity to the technical components or skeleton of organ music.8 To
approach music's aesthetic ends, Farnam first insisted upon absolute mastery of
the score, careful planning of fingering, endless practice of difficult
passages. Moreover, Farnam demanded an end to the physical pyrotechnics and
theatrical body thrusts which organists often affected at the console. Clear,
clean, precise playing soon brought a predictable dissatisfaction with the
sluggish, muddy sounds of romantic organs and led to an interest in Baroque
techniques of organ building, a return to the principles of construction,
design and stop selection practiced in Bach's era. Farnam's followers, then,
embarked upon a dual quest: more responsive instruments and clearer sounds to
convey more precise playing. Their vision for organ study proclaimed forcefully
the link between technical and aesthetic dimensions of music, the objective and
subjective components of art. And in his own practice, Lynnwood Farnam left
little to chance; before playing a recital, he insisted upon a minimum of
fifteen hours to prepare himself at the instrument he was to play.

In addition to his insistence upon technical perfection,
Farnam's notions of repertoire were built around the music of Bach. He
especially condemned the nineteenth-century custom of including transcriptions
or arrangements of piano music in organ recitals: études of Chopin or
Schumann, pieces such as Debussy's Clair de lune, Rachmaninoff's Prelude in
C-sharp Minor, and overtures and arias from opera. In a series of twenty
recitals, Farnam performed the complete organ works of Bach, a monumental
statement of his musical vision and a feat which his student, Carl Weinrich,
was to repeat many times. Weinrich's appointment as Farnam's successor at the
Church of the Holy Communion, following the latter's death in 1930, indicates
the high regard which Weinrich's playing enjoyed in Farnam's circle.

Weinrich's legacy to his students, and hence to all
musicians who followed him, is three-fold. First, he adopted, practiced, and
passed on Lynnwood Farnam's uncompromising standard of technical excellence as
the foundation of aesthetic satisfaction. Second, having at his disposal the
whole of organ literature, he offered to his students his own special views
concerning repertoire and its use. Third, Weinrich fostered in those about him
an artistic awakening, a refined musical judgment, the unerring aesthetic
sensibility which Plato attributes in the Republic, Book III, to a proper
education in music. Throughout his life, Carl Weinrich stubbornly refused to
practice or to perform any but the very best music composed for the organ.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Legacy 1: Technique, Organ Design and Artistry

It is the first of these three legacies, Weinrich's efforts
to rescue organ playing from technical lassitude, which remains his most
difficult, his most heroic and his most far-reaching musical gift to us. To
begin with, Weinrich's Apollonian style rested upon an intense scrutiny of the
notes. His scores included extensive notations of fingering, and much of his
time with students was given over to searching carefully and slowly for the
best possible execution of difficult passages. Impatient with older theories of
fingering, Weinrich was an outspoken proponent of employing, whenever possible,
"the strong fingers," the thumb, index and middle finger of each
hand. He insisted that, especially in the works of Bach, one could always
devise a comfortable fingering for even the most difficult passages. He often
commented that "if the fingering of a particular passage isn't comfortable
when you practice it, the tension of a public performance will probably cause
you to stumble at that spot. A musical composition is like a string of
pearls--one weak knot, and the necklace breaks; one flubbed measure can destroy
the beauty and perfection which you achieve in all the others."

To be sure, a difficult measure or passage, properly fingered,
might require scores of repeated attempts to master. One should know a work
well enough to play each part separately, he insisted, and should practice a
piece for at least one year before performing it in public.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  As if to follow Bach's famous attribution
of his own success to hard work,9 Weinrich the student practiced at least eight
hours per day. At the time of his retirement, he still considered five hours
per day a minimum practice schedule for an active organist.

Weinrich's concern for precision even extended to noting
pedal passages with a "P.N." to remind himself which was the
"pivot note," the moment at which the body should shift its angle to
execute comfortably the pedal lines. 
And then, like Farnam, he allowed himself no other movement at the
console.  He was willing to discuss
diverse possibilities for phrasing, and hence for interpretation, only after a
student had demonstrated undisputed mastery of the work's skeleton. He liked to
say that his first concern was to help a student get the notes firmly in hand,
into the "strong fingers." "After that," he once said,
"we can discuss phrasing at our leisure.  My first job is to see that you can play these notes
correctly and with the same good fingering each time you approach this
piece."

It is natural that, following Lynnwood Farnam's first steps,
Carl Weinrich's tireless zeal to perfect the technique of organ playing led
him, as it had led Bach before him, to a careful evaluation of the instrument
itself, to the impact of organ design upon technical and aesthetic
considerations. Determined that musical lines must be clear to the ear,
Weinrich was an early proponent of spare use of the 8' registers, of eliminating
the heavy Diapason stops and of developing a full Rückpositiv division for
proper registration of the music of Bach. Together with G. Donald Harrison of
the Skinner Organ Company, Weinrich toured the organ lofts of Europe in the
summer of 1936 and studied carefully the instruments whose design and sound he
admired. While head of the organ department at Westminster Choir College
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  (1934-1940), he designed a Baroque
instrument for his studio, the celebrated "Praetorius Organ"
installed in 1939, one of the first instruments in this country built to
recover the clear tonal capacity and clean sounds necessary to the technical
perfection Weinrich sought.

After taking up his post at Princeton in 1943, Weinrich
began with Harrison a rebuilding of the University's enormous Chapel organ,
disconnecting many of the old, useless stops and adding the bright sounds of a
Baroque instrument.10 In later years, Weinrich collaborated with Walter
Holtkamp, Sr. in pioneering efforts to design organs following Baroque models.
The thirty-four stop, three-manual Holtkamp organ at General Theological
Seminary in New York, completed in October, 1958, is a monument to their
labors.11  Weinrich proudly used
this instrument for all of his later recordings with RCA Victor.

Improved technical articulation and improved organ sound
generated new possibilities for interpretation. Both inspired and enabled by
new instruments, Carl Weinrich began to play Bach's works at a far greater
speed than had been the custom. One need only compare Weinrich's early
recordings of Bach with those of Albert Schweitzer, a formidable Bach scholar
but a technically mediocre performer, to understand the very pleasing aesthetic
implications of superior technique, clear sounds and brisk tempi. Throughout
his life, Weinrich remained keenly interested in the relationship between tempo
and music's aesthetic effect. He checked himself regularly with a metronome to
ensure an accurate rhythmic rendering of each passage. He was forever warning
of the danger of rushing the sixteenth notes, even when playing with the
metronome. The margins of Weinrich's music, particularly his Bach scores,
contained a fascinating record of the diverse organs upon which he had
performed and recorded, and the tempi appropriate to each.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  But the happy marriage of superior
technique and intelligent organ design gave birth to unexpected musical
problems, unanticipated artistic discoveries.

In 1959, Carl Weinrich dedicated a new Holtkamp organ for
the First Presbyterian Church, now Nassau Presbyterian, in Princeton. Conceived
as an instrument similar to the organ at General Theological Seminary in New
York, the Princeton Holkamp included a complete Rückpositiv division,
three manuals and twenty-nine stops.12 Organist of the church for forty years,
Mary Krimmel was also Weinrich's brilliant student from his earliest days of
teaching, and she was determined that her congregation should enjoy the fruits
of Weinrich's research into organ design. But upon completion of the organ, a
problem which neither Weinrich nor Mrs. Krimmel foresaw quickly began to
manifest itself. Unlike the New York organ, First Presbyterian's instrument is
housed in an acoustically challenged space. Because First Presbyterian stands
approximately 150 yards from the Princeton Chapel, with its immense Aeolian
Skinner and endless echoes, the several organists who often performed on both
instruments experienced a technical, then aesthetic dichotomy. Detached, crisp
playing necessary for musical clarity in the cavernous chapel produced a
crumbly, thin, and altogether uninteresting effect in the church; stately tempi
suited to the chapel's great masses of sound became tediously slow in the
church. Each setting was an exaggerated circumstance: few rooms could be as
acoustically alive as the Princeton Chapel or as tonally unresponsive as the
First Presbyterian Church.

Efforts to find a technical solution to the aesthetic
dilemma surrounding these two fine organs led Carl Weinrich and Mary Krimmel to
undertake a search for improved articulation, an approach which would finally
produce aesthetically pleasing music in both the chapel and church. For
Weinrich, the subject was not a new one. Questions of how to achieve the best
articulation of a musical line began during his days under Farnam. Carl
Weinrich the student marvelled at his teacher's ability to play a legato line
as though there were tiny spaces of air between each note.13 In later years,
Weinrich often commented to his own students that he learned from Farnam the
secret of how to execute a singing legato without loss of definition and
clarity. Under no circumstances was the listener to sense a staccato touch.

The problem of fitting articulation to the instrument and to
its environment remained a matter of great interest to both Carl Weinrich and
Mary Krimmel to the end of their professional lives. It was my great good fortune
to be the student of both Weinrich and Krimmel and to prepare for many years a
weekly lesson on each instrument. What they learned and I absorbed from this
experience proved the most exciting and complete instruction possible in organ
articulation. Their endless discussions of articulation, of technical
exactitude, of how to execute the notes, would not have been novel in piano
pedagogy. For organ study, it was revolutionary. The following principles
slowly emerged.

First, neither strict legato nor detached, non-legato
playing satisfied the listener in either setting.  On both organs, a sensible alternation between detaching and
connecting notes produced the best effect.  Second, step-motion generally required a legato line, while
skips could be detached.  In the
church, the slightest change from a legato to a detached line produced an
immediate effect; in the chapel, only very pronounced, exaggerated articulation
reached the listener's ear. What in the chapel seemed to the performer a
slightly detached articulation became a singing legato as the sound moved out
to fill the nave. Finally, and most important, the same piece had to be
executed very differently on each organ. In the chapel, Bach's heroic Toccata
in F major had to be played at a tempo deliberate enough to allow an
appreciation of the work's massive chords punctuated by octave leaps and
cadenzas in the pedal. In the church, the Toccata had to move at much brisker
pace; sections following the second pedal cadenza unfolded most effectively if
the organist conceived of one beat, not three, to a measure.

Handel concerti proved to be the most difficult works of all
to tackle. In the chapel, a clearly detached line in all parts produced an
exciting interpretation; in the church, one had to cultivate a very slight
detachment, an articulation midway between staccato and legato, one which
obliged the organist to remain precariously perched on the edge of the keys.
Carl Weinrich, having thoroughly adjusted to the very live acoustics of the
Princeton Chapel, continued to employ a crisp, detached articulation; Mary
Krimmel, confronted with the dry environment, moved to a firm, legato style
made vital by a careful detaching of skips. The lesson is a clear one:
organists must approach each instrument, able to make even radical adjustments
in articulation to suit the organ's setting.

Legacy 2: Components and Uses of Repertoire

As he carried forward Lynnwood Farnam's technical legacy,
Carl Weinrich, like Farnam before him, exercised a formidable influence upon an
entire generation's notion of worthy repertoire for a superior organist.
Weinrich's clearest statement concerning organ literature came in 1950-51, when
Harvard University named him the Lamb Visiting Lecturer in Music, an honor
previously accorded Gustav Holst, Béla Bartók, and Aaron Copland.
For the first time, this prestigious post went to a performer, and the
compositions Weinrich chose for his series of eight recitals form what might be
called the Great Works for the organ.14 Weinrich's Apollonian tastes are never
more apparent: not one single work chosen for the eight recitals comes from the
nineteenth century.

It is here that the history of organ playing records an
accident, an irony, and an amusing juxtaposition. At the same time the
Apollonian Carl Weinrich was playing the eight Lamb recitals in Harvard's
Memorial Church, E. Power Biggs was continuing his custom, begun in the 1940s,
of broadcasting organ recitals from Boston's Symphony hall and Harvard's
Busch-Reisinger Museum. It would be an exaggeration to assert that these two
famous pioneers in organ study and building shared no common ground. As is
well-known, Biggs, like Weinrich, collaborated in the 1930s with his fellow
English ex-patriot, G. Donald Harrison, in the design and building of tonally
improved organs.  Biggs supervised,
in 1937, the construction of one of Harrison's early instruments, an organ for
Busch Reisinger Museum much like the "Praetorius Organ" Harrison
installed at Westminster Choir College for Weinrich. It is this instrument
which Biggs used for his famous broadcasts which began in 1942.15

Operating independent of both church and school, however,
Biggs's turf lay in the concert hall. Sensitive to that environment, he
cultivated a Dionysiac's taste and repertoire unlike Carl Weinrich's chosen
restraint. His programs, which contended with Weinrich's for announcement space
in the Harvard University Gazette of 1950-51, did include Bach, but also a
heavy offering of nineteenth-century music: Franck, Strauss, Schumann, and the
twentieth-century warhorse, Alain's Litanies. Biggs's Dionysiac programming was
conceived to make organ music accessible to untrained listeners, and to widen
organ repertoire to include all manner of popular and classical works.
Weinrich's Apollonian attitude gave no thought to popular taste or preference.
He was delighted with the environment which Princeton's chapel provided for his
recitals: absolute silence before the music began, and no applause at its
conclusion.

Among those Bach chorale preludes Weinrich played most often
were, from the Eighteen Organ Chorales, "O Lamm Gottes"; the
celebrated, double pedal composition on "An Wasserflüssen
Babylon"; and from the third part of the Klavierübung, a spectacular
little fugue, "Dies sind die heilgen zehn Gebot," and Bach's only
six-voice composition which has come down to us for the organ, "Aus tiefer
Not."

Perhaps the double pedal lines of "Aus tiefer Not"
and "An Wasserflüssen Babylon" appealed to Weinrich.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Only an organist of superlative
technical accomplishment can handle these complex pedal parts, and at the same
time convey the sadness and deep feelings which pervade each piece. And his
playing of much smaller works reliably captured the same mystical quality of
more extended compositions; from the Orgelbüchlein, he often chose for a
recital's encore "In dir ist Freude," "In dulci jubilo" and
"Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf"; each in his hands became a
small, flawless jewel.

Of Bach's great preludes and fugues, Weinrich played often
the Fugue in E-flat major ("St. Anne"), the Toccata and Fugue in F
major, the extremely popular Toccata and Fugue in D minor, the Prelude and
Fugue in A minor, the Fantasie and Fugue in G minor, the Toccata, Adagio and
Fugue in C major, the Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, the Toccata and Fugue
in D minor (the "Dorian"), the Fantasie in G major, the Prelude and
Fugue in B minor, the Prelude and Fugue in G major and, curiously, the
strangely hybrid Pastorale in F. His playing of both the pedal and manual
ornaments in Bach's Toccata in F, the piece which for Mendelssohn "brought
down the roof of the church,"16 and his introduction of complex
ornamentation in Bach's subject for the Fugue in F major, perfectly executed
each time the subject appears, were spectacular examples of his technical
prowess.

Another of his favorites was the Concerto in A minor, Bach's
arrangement for organ of Vivaldi's double concerto for two violins.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Weinrich performed the spare,
ravishingly beautiful middle movement at a very gentle, meditative pace,
employing a mournful reed for the solo passages, and then fell suddenly,
unexpectedly, with piercingly bright sounds upon the descending scale passages
which open the last movement. His breathlessly exciting tempo of this final
movement, notes spectacularly detached and perfectly articulated, formed a
thrilling contrast to the middle movement's careful legato touch and languid
mood. In addition, for the last movement of the concerto, Weinrich exploited
his talent for innovative registrations and the Princeton organ's resources,
employing two divisions located on opposite sides of the chancel; the result
accentuated the dazzling series of echoes and imitations for which Vivaldi's
music is famous, all played at a speed which no organist could match.

Weinrich regularly included movements from Bach's Trio
Sonatas in chapel services and on recital programs, and described playing these
most difficult of all pieces for the organ as "walking on eggs for twenty
minutes." He was, moreover, wonderfully inventive in selecting music for
the special needs of a university community. For the long academic processions
at all official university functions in the chapel, Weinrich chose, rather than
insipid voluntaries or marches, Bach's elaborately extended chorales and
chorale preludes on "Komm, heiliger Geist," from the Eighteen Organ
Chorales, and "Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit" and "Kyrie, Gott
heiliger Geist," from the third part of the Klavierübung. Weinrich's
choice of Bach's most ornate four-part chorales for processionals at university
functions meant filling the chapel's nave with what are perhaps music's most
majestic chords, most ordered voices. It is hard to imagine a more perfect
blend of reason, sensual splendor, and art: the four musical lines moving
flawlessly toward their cadences as scholars of all ages and academic colors
process ponderously by.

While his primary interest and preference always lay with
the music of J.S. Bach, Carl Weinrich often commented that his favorite piece,
one which he played in public at least once each year, was Buxtehude's chorale
prelude on Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern!  And Weinrich's unbending fidelity to the score did not imply
monochromatic or uninteresting choices of registration. His daring, unexpected
use of reeds in Buxtehude's Wie schön leuchtet, preserved in a recording
made on the Holtkamp at General Theological Seminary, is a truly ingenious
interpretation of a masterpiece. He frequently performed Sweelinck's echo
fantasies and variations on Mein junges Leben hat ein End', Cabezón's
Diferencias sobre el canto del caballero, the preludes and fugues of Buxtehude
and Bruhns, Lübeck's Prelude and Fugue in E major, Noël #10 from
Daquin's book of twelve noëls. He recorded the Handel organ concertos,
Mozart church sonatas, and the Haydn organ concerto with Arthur Fiedler and the
Boston Pops orchestra. In addition, Weinrich released recordings of Baroque
Christmas music and organ music of the Bach family.

Although not as a group his favorite works, a few pieces
from Romantic composers appeared each year on his programs and among his
recordings; reviewers and concert goers frequently commented that it was
surprising to hear the organist famous for definitive renditions of Bach bring
such precision and sensitivity to later works.17 He played Mendelssohn's Sonata
I, Franck's Pièce Héroïque, and Brahms's chorale preludes
and Fugue in A-flat minor. The modern period received his enthusiastic study,
especially Hindemith's First Sonata for organ, Messiaen's Dieu Parmi Nous, and
Marcel Dupré's Cortège et Litanie, copied down when Weinrich was
a student of the great Frenchman. And Weinrich was very proud to have offered
the first public performance of Schoenberg's "Variations on a Recitativ,"
op. 40, a work which he edited for publication.

Weinrich's improvisations, or, rather, what we might call
Weinrich's theory of improvisation, deserve special mention. No Princeton
student interested in music could ever forget Carl Weinrich's spectacular
modulations and improvisations spun out between the organ's offertory and the
congregation's singing of the Doxology which followed.
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  Retaining the theme from his offertory
piece, Weinrich slipped adroitly through a succession of keys, adding ranks of
pipes with each phrase. Three special pieces reveal how he planned his
modulations or "improvisations," for in truth, Carl Weinrich was too
much a student of the classical principles of form, too Apollonian, to attempt
an unplanned or uncharted improvisation. 

The last movement of Mendelssohn's first organ sonata and
Bach's "St. Anne" fugue, two master works he especially favored for
offertories at Princeton, possess unmistakable, famous musical tropes which he
used to begin the improvisation and to establish its structure. The thundering
arpeggios of Mendelssohn's finale to his first sonata, the "St. Anne"
theme and the subject of the third movement's fugue--each became the germ for
an improvisation.  If the offertory
happened to include an anthem or composition by Mozart, Weinrich quoted the
great chords, dissonances, and dotted rhythms of Mozart's Fantasie in F minor,
K. 608.   Listeners awaited
the inevitable, climactic arrival of the dominant seventh chord, and then the
resolution in G major on which note the singing began. Because Weinrich never
played a preparatory phrase from the Doxology, one was obliged to listen
intently as the downbeat of an emerging tonic chord drew nearer and nearer.
Organists who must provide an improvisational bridge between an anthem and
doxology would do well to remember Weinrich's secret.  One should choose a theme or motif of the piece just
completed, and make that theme or motif the unifying idea of improvisation.

Legacy 3: Aesthetic Sensibility and a Life in Music

Carl Weinrich's third great legacy to organ study and
performance evolved from his decision, taken early in his career, to invest his
energy and effort in only those works he considered the very best compositions
for the organ. Having little patience with Romantic warhorses which merely
exploit the organ's capacity to sustain loud, rushing noise, Weinrich
withstood, in Apollonian fashion like Bach before him, many years of censure
from mediocre musicians and critics who felt him excessively inflexible,
narrow, and rigid in his adherence to Bach.

But Carl Weinrich's early recognition of those compositions
of greatest artistic value, and his fidelity to their study and performance,
widened his place in musical history from that of master performer to master
teacher. His dual authority, first over organ music's technical, then its
aesthetic, dimensions pointed students' interest and organists' labors toward
those composers and compositions capable of capturing one's imagination
forever. His life's work answers not only the question of how to realize the
full beauty of organ literature, but which portions of that literature merit
first, our endless technical effort to play accurately, and then, a lifetime of
sensitivity and reflection to interpret.

Perhaps because as a weekly performer for the Princeton
community, Carl Weinrich had to reclaim and defend his mastery of the organ
each time he sat down at the console, he retained throughout his professional
life both a student's wonder at the act of playing and a student's uneasiness
before the demands of the art. One could say without fear of overstatement that
Carl Weinrich remained, forever, frightfully respectful of the perils of
performance. It is not possible to over-practice great music or to arrive at a
definitive interpretation of its beauty, he liked to observe, nor does one ever
tire of returning "to polish once again an exquisite diamond."

As a teacher, 
Weinrich set before his students a three-pronged challenge which he
himself had answered: to identify within one's self a passionate devotion to
one field of inquiry and to remain forever its restless student; to train
discriminating eyes and ears to direct the efforts of imperfect hands and feet;
to recognize that mastery of a discipline is achieved only when one understands
that it is in the details of construction, in the skeleton, that all great art
is made. The process of intense scrutiny required to master a work's skeleton
teaches us that all art is not equal, all compositions not of a quality to
command one's study for life.

It is not surprise, finally, to discover that in his thirty
years at Princeton University's center, Weinrich's approach to the study of
music practiced the fundamental principles of a liberal arts college.
Princeton's president Robert F. Goheen, in his address to the Freshman Class at
Opening Exercises in the fall of 1965, insisted that a liberal education is not
merely to prepare one to earn a living, but also to open the mind to a field of
inquiry, a body of knowledge or learning capable of engaging the spirit and
intellect throughout life. In order to realize any of the great ends of
education, students must give themselves to a discipline, an intellectual and
artistic task which will command their life's attention, effort, and passion.

In music, a regrettable emphasis, often encouraged by
teachers, upon pursuing "what hasn't been done" occasionally leads
students to invest their time and talent in works or ideas too shallow for
repeated scrutiny, too jejune to sustain a mature spirit. By stating
unequivocally that organists should look to Bach, that the Master's greatest
works require a lifetime to execute and to interpret, that a life spent with
J.S. Bach is a life well spent, Weinrich's legacy can still spare all who will
listen from the sa

La Wanda Blakeney is Professor of Music at Louisiana State University in Shreveport. She holds a Ph.D. in Musicology from The University of Texas at Austin, where her major professor was Dr. Hanns-Bertold Dietz. A former student of Gilbert Pirovano and William C. Teague, Dr. Blakeney also serves as assistant organist at First United Methodist Church in Shreveport.

Introduction

While the nineteenth-century masters of the Romantic avant garde and even many composers of what Robert Schumann called the juste milieu have been dealt with significantly in musicological treatises, the more conservative composers still remain widely ignored. An example of the latter is August Gott-fried Ritter (1811-1885), an artist who was well known and highly revered in his lifetime not only as a performer and teacher but also as a composer and author of many reviews, musicological articles, and books. Today, however, Ritter is scarcely mentioned. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (1963) provides only a brief sketch of his life and a partial listing of his works, and the composer does not appear at all in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2001).

The reason for Ritter's almost total obscurity is not that he lacked recognized accomplishments but rather that the focus of his activities, namely Protestant church music, appears to offer little attraction to present-day scholars. In their disinterest in Protestant church music of the nineteenth century, modern scholars actually reflect an aesthetic attitude inherited from the Enlightenment. The late eighteenth century was marked by a declining interest in the church itself, and music within the worship service was relegated to a less important role. Many church choirs were disbanded, and the concert hall gradually replaced the church as the leading musico-cultural force in the community. How much the organist and cantor suffered in artistic and social prestige is indicated by the Prussian Code of 1794, which lists both professions as "lower church employees . . . on a level with custodians."1 It is therefore not surprising that during the nineteenth century most of the talented musicians sought careers outside the conservative environment of the church and none of the major composers made church music the center of their compositional interest, even those who played and wrote for the organ.2

Generally speaking, by the time of Ritter's birth in 1811, church music had reached a nadir in comparison with achievements of earlier days. This does not mean, though, that traditions were totally abandoned and that no efforts were made by some dedicated few to stem the tide and to uphold excellence in church music. As Georg Feder points out, "the practice of sacred music in Saxony and Thuringia never really deteriorated."3 For example, in Erfurt, Ritter's birthplace, the church remained a major outlet for artistic expression even during the early nineteenth century. Nevertheless, one must add that it certainly no longer held center stage.

Ritter was quite aware of the changing compositional trends, and he wrote works in the current secular musical genres, such as orchestral overtures, symphonies, piano sonatas, and character pieces. However, Ritter soon began to direct his attention toward music for the organ. An early indication of this interest was his decision in 1834 to attend the Royal Institute for Church Music in Berlin. Nine years later, Ritter again showed a preference for church music, when he accepted the Domorganist position in Merseburg instead of a much more lucrative choral directorship in Berlin.4 At a time when interest in church music was waning and many professional musicians had already abandoned the church for employment in secular areas, Ritter thus elected to stay within the church and to do his utmost to improve the level of organ performance and organ composition.

Since Ritter's life is not well known, the following is a biographical account, including information about the composer's family, friends, teachers, and the different stages of his official career as church organist and music director.

Early Years in Erfurt

According to the Augustinerkirche baptismal register in Erfurt, August Gottfried Ritter was born on August25, 1811, at five o'clock in the morning and baptized at the church eight days later. He was the son of Johann Heinrich Ritter and Maria née Kegel (or Kögel).5

The infant Ritter and his parents resided on Gotthard Street near the monastery that Martin Luther (1483-1546) had entered in 1501, and not far from the neighborhood where Christoph Martin Wieland (1733-1813), the eminent poet and novelist, had once lived.6 Late nineteenth-century biographers have disagreed on the family's financial status. Robert Frenzel, in his article "Ein bekannter und doch wenig gekannter Orgelmeister" (1894), states that Ritter's father was well-to-do,7 while the Encyklopädie der evängelischen Kirchenmusik (1894), edited by Salomon Kümmerle, describes the family's living conditions as modest.8 Ritter's father, a commoner, was a flour merchant, a profession that must have run in the family, since church records and address catalogs back to the beginning of the eighteenth century indicate that there were a number of Erfurt residents by the name of Ritter, all of them millers or members of similar middle-class positions.9

The years surrounding Ritter's birth were marked by political instability, with most of Europe embroiled in the Napoleonic Wars. The town of Erfurt, which had become part of Prussia in 1802, came under French domination in 1806, and two years later was the site of Napoleon's meeting with Tsar Alexander I of Russia and the Kings of Bavaria, Saxony, Westphalia, and Württemberg. In 1813 the town was reconquered by the Prussians, who, with the help of their allies, defeated Napoleon Bonaparte during the famous "Battle of the Nations" at Leipzig on October 16-19 of the same year.10 It was not quite a month later that Ritter's father died of "nerves and foul fever," as the Augustinerkirche records indicate, on November 13, 1813, at the age of twenty-seven.11

After his father's death, August Gott-fried was reared by an uncle. This fact, first mentioned in the Encyclopädie der gesammten musikalischen Wissenschaften (1842), which contains the earliest article on Ritter,12 was reiterated and embellished upon in later biographical dictionaries, among them the Neues Universal-Lexikon der Tonkunst (1851), which states that Ritter was "brought up by an uncle with love and care."13

The only personal reference to his parents and childhood is a letter, dated June 20, 1836, in which Ritter states that shortly after the death of his father, his mother married Johannes Christian Samuel Ritter, another flour merchant. However, the composer fails to mention whether or not his stepfather was also his father's brother.14  Nothing is known about when his mother died.

Ritter received his earliest and most profound musical inspiration and education through the institution of the church. Such an experience was not unusual, since the dominant cultural force in the community had traditionally been the church. For example, Martin Luther had obtained part of his well-rounded musical education at the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt, where in 1524 two Enchiridia, among the first Protestant hymnals, had been published.15

Young August Gottfried attended the Augustiner-Parochial-Schule, and his family worshipped at the Augustinerkirche. When Andreas Ketschau (1798-1869), the organist at that church, learned of the young boy's interest in music, he began to instruct him in piano, organ, and harmony. The exact dates for these lessons are not known, but Ritter must have begun at an early age and progressed very rapidly, for he publicly performed a Mozart piano concerto at the age of eleven.16

Andreas Ketschau was a significant figure in the musical life of Erfurt, and the importance that accompanied his position as organist and teacher was not at all unusual. Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, church musicians, especially organist-composers, had determined the direction of Erfurt's musical development. Members of J. S. Bach's family had taught at church schools and occupied almost all church organist positions of the town.17 Hieronymus Praetorius (1560-1629), Michael Altenburg (1584-1640), the prestigious Predigerkirche organist Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706), Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748), and Jakob Adlung (1699-1762) had also numbered among Erfurt's most notable church musicians.18 During the late eighteenth century it was Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809), author of the influential Der angehende praktische Organist (in three parts, 1801, 1803, 1808;3d ed. in 1831), who upheld the tradition of excellence in Erfurt's church music. Deeply revered as the last pupil of J. S. Bach, Kittel was an organ virtuoso whose concerts attracted such prominent individuals as Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe from nearby Weimar.19 Although cultural entertainment in Erfurt expanded in the late eighteenth century to include operettas, theatrical productions, and a choral society, the tradition of church music, particularly organ music, remained strong.20 It can thus be readily assumed that Ketschau instilled in the young August Gottfried Ritter a deep sense of reverence for early music.

Erfurt's general cultural life declined from 1806 through 1813, the years of French occupation. The local choral society was disbanded, and there were no concerts by touring German artists. Entertainment instead featured Parisian ballets and visiting actors of the French theatre, but these events were under French auspices and not intended for the average Erfurt citizen.21 Even the participants in the grand music festival in 1811, held in honor of Napoleon's birthday, were mostly musicians from other towns in Germany and not Erfurt residents.22 In fact, the scarcity of concerts prompted one critic to complain in the winter of 1812 that Erfurt public concerts were at a "standstill."23 Only church music continued to be cultivated much as it had been in the past.

Ritter's childhood was marked by a revival of general musical activities in Erfurt. In February of 1815, two years after the ouster of the French troops, a touring violin virtuoso named Ochernal presented two concerts.24 Vocal lessons were given at the newly-founded Erfurt Teachers Seminary,25 and in 1816, Prussian soldiers stationed in a garrison near the town are reported to have received instruction in part-singing.26 In 1819 the local choral society was re-established, this time as the Soller'sche Verein, and on August3, 1821, the Society, assisted by amateurs and musicians from neighboring villages, successfully performed in public for the first time. This concert, held in honor of the birthday of Frederick William III, King of Prussia, marked the beginning of an Erfurt tradition that became known as the King's Birthday Festival, an event that later expanded into an annual series of concerts for which Erfurt became famous, and in which Ritter became an active participant.27 In 1826 a second choral group, the Erfurt Musikverein, was founded, with Ketschau, Ritter's music teacher, as its artistic director. This choral group consisted of206 dilettantes and musicians (eighty-four singers, fifty-two instrumentalists, the remainder non-performers), all of whom paid monthly dues to support a full orchestra, a string quartet, a Liedertafel, and a singing school by 1835.28

The repertoire of both choral societies, and particularly the pronounced purpose of the Erfurt Music Society, are worth mentioning, for they reveal attitudes typical for the musical climate of Erfurt at that time. At the first King's Birthday Festival, the Soller'sche Society performed Johann Christian Friedrich Schneider's (1786-1837) oratorio Weltgericht in the Predigerkirche,29 and for the second Festival, members of the Teachers Seminary combined forces with the Soller'sche Society to perform Haydn's oratorio The Seasons.30 Although these were not the kinds of pieces that would appeal to a public infatuated with the more modern, fashionable genres, the constituent members of the Erfurt Music Society, like those of the Soller'sche Society, had resolved to perform music that is "not subject to fashionable taste of the time, and for that reason, variable."31 In 1835 an anonymous reviewer could state that the Erfurt Music Society's "praiseworthy" goal had been achieved.32 Continuing its tradition, this Music Society four years later successfully performed Mendelssohn's St. Paul, and once again an anonymous reviewer enthusiastically approved the Society's choice of repertoire.

. . . ist es doch sehr erfreulich zu wissen, dass ungeachtet des durch eine burleske und frivole Muse nur zu sehr verflachten Zeitgeschmacks die ernste heilige Musik auch hier der Verehrer nicht wenige zählt. Des sollen Dankes dieser kann sich der Musik-Verein unter allen Umständen versichert halten.33

[. . . it is, however, very gratifying to know that in spite of contemporary taste, which has become very shallow through a burlesque and frivolous muse, devoted admirers of serious religious music number not a few here. In any case, the Music Society should be assured of thanks.]

Education in Erfurt and Weimar

As an impressionable young child, Ritter was deeply affected by the conservative cultural climate that prevailed in Erfurt--respect for tradition, disregard for the taste of the masses, and a preference for serious religious music, even when not in vogue. All of these attitudes became Ritter's own and determined the ultimate direction of his life. Ritter attended the Gymnasium, where he continued his music lessons, and shortly before Easter of 1828, he passed the entrance examination to the Erfurt Teachers Seminary. Among his instructors there were the theologian Friedrich Ritschl, a philologist named Pabst,34 and Johann Immanuel Müller (1774-1839).35 Müller probably taught singing and conducting, since he had been credited in 1821 with the "blossoming of an excellent school for vocal song" and had served as music director of the first two King's Birthday Festivals.36

It was as a student at the Teachers Seminary that Ritter "dedicated himself with earnestness in the direction of organ playing."37 His organ teacher there was Michael Gotthard Fischer (1773-1829), a former pupil of Kittel and, at that time, the most prestigious organist in Erfurt. Fischer became seriously ill during Ritter's year of study with him and died in January of 1829; nevertheless, he must have exerted a decisive influence upon the young artist. When Ritter left the Seminary, he was given a superior rating,38 and many years later, in a letter to someone named Heindl, Ritter mentioned Fischer as one of his most influential teachers.39

One might assume that Ritter completed his education at the Teachers Seminary in 1829, since the composer himself said that he became the Andreaskirche organist in the fall of that particular year.40 His statement, however, is contradicted by the fact that this Erfurt church was closed for repairs from 1827 until 1830. Church records also indicate that Ritter was named teacher at the Andreasschule on October 1, 1830, but did not officially become church organist until January 1, 1831.41

Another imprecise statement made by Ritter concerns his studies with Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837). While discussing his education after leaving the Seminary, Ritter mentions that he received piano lessons from Hummel in Weimar and attended the Royal Institute for Church Music in Berlin "during a lengthy absence" from Erfurt.

während lingerer Abwesenheit von Erfurt dazwischen Schüler von Hummel in Weimar, Ludwig Berger in Berlin, von C. v. Winterfeld protegiert . . .42

[During a lengthy absence from Erfurt, in the meantime a student of Hummel in Weimar, Ludwig Berger in Berlin, protégé of C. v. Winterfeld . . . .]

Ritter's reference to the "lengthy absence" must obviously apply only to his stay in Berlin. Since Weimar is not more than thirteen miles from Erfurt, it stands to reason that Ritter, while employed at the Andreaskirche, traveled each week from Erfurt to Weimar for lessons with Hummel, as two of Ritter's biographers indicate.43

Ritter's studies with Hummel proved invaluable. Hummel, a former child prodigy and student of Mozart, was considered one of Europe's foremost pianists, both as a performer and as a teacher.44 By 1830 Hummel had already instructed a number of well-known pianists, including the young Mendelssohn, Ferdinand Hiller (1811-1885), probably Sigismund Thalberg (1812-1871), who later competed intensely with Franz Liszt,45 and Adolf Henselt (1814-1889). Under Hummel's guidance, Ritter developed "a proper, clean handling of the piano" and learned "how to charm through clever and tasteful interpretation." More importantly, Hummel also imparted to his young student the art of improvisation, a skill in which Hummel excelled and one that would later bring renown to Ritter.46

While studying in Weimar, Ritter became exposed to the town's rich and culturally varied milieu. Diverse types of music--opera, chamber music, concerto, symphony--were already well-established there before the arrival of Hummel as grand-ducal Kapellmeister in 1818.47 As one of Hummel's students, Ritter could very well have met important friends of his teacher, such as Carl Eberwein (1786-1868), the Weimar opera director, and the eminent organist and city cantor Johann Gottlob Töpfer (1791-1870). Ritter later published several of Töpfer's organ pieces in his keyboard editions.48

If the lessons in Weimar took place before 1832, Hummel may have also introduced Ritter to the venerable Goethe, who lived in Weimar,49 and to Goethe's close friend, Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1832), a frequent visitor from Berlin and founder of the Royal Institute for Church Music.50 It would not have taken long for Zelter to discover Ritter's penchant for old music, and it could have been Zelter who first advised Ritter to come to Berlin for further studies. As director of the Institute, Zelter may have also arranged for Ritter to meet Johann Albrecht Friedrich von Eichhorn, the Prussian Minister of Schools who provided Ritter with a government grant to attend the Institute in 1834.51

After Ritter received word of his governmental assistance, he informed the council of the Andreaskirche that he wished to "improve myself in music" and had made plans to attend the Royal Institute for Church Music in Berlin.52 He was given a leave of absence, and Eduard Bochmann was appointed Ritter's substitute at the Andreaskirche. Bochmann, himself an excellent organist, stated that he was "full of honor" to serve in Ritter's place.53

Berlin

When Ritter arrived in Berlin during September of 1834, he entered a musical environment in which the music of J. S. Bach was revered and cultivated by a small group of intellectuals. Even during the middle of the eighteenth century, when changing musical styles had dictated a reaction against the older contrapuntal style, Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721-1783), Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg (1718-1795), Johann Friedrich Agricola (1720-1774), and Princess Amalia, sister of Frederick the Great, had collected and preserved Bach manuscripts.54

During the 1770s Kirnberger had summarized the essence of Bach's theoretical teachings in Die Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik, and in 1782 he wrote a short pamphlet, Gedenken über die verschiedenen Lehrarten in der Komposition, unconditionally praising Bach's approach.55 Nine years later Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch (1736-1800) formed the Berlin Singakademie, whose purpose was to revive sacred vocal music of the past. As one of the earliest institutions to organize historical concerts, the Singakademie performed Komm, Jesu, komm, BWV299 and other motets during a period in which Bach's music was not widely known.56 In 1801 Das wohltemperierte Klavier was made available to the public almost simultaneously by three different publishing firms,57 and in the following year Johann Nikolaus Forkel's (1749-1818) significant biography, Über Johann Sebastian Bachs Leben, Kunst, und Kunstwerke, appeared.58 Later on, admiration for Bach was further expressed by the Sing-akademie's now-famous 1829 performance of the St. Matthew Passion, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn. This concert was therefore not an isolated phenomenon but simply a step in a series of events which reflected the increasing enthusiasm for Bach's music, eventually culminating in the establishment of the Bach Gesellschaft in 1850 and a complete critical edition of all of Bach's compositions.59

In Berlin the appreciation of music from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was not limited solely to Bach. Carl Heinrich Graun's (1703-1759) Der Tod Jesu was regularly performed during Passion Week, and Handel oratorios, including Messiah, which premiered in Berlin in 1786, were also frequently performed.60 Johann Friedrich Reichardt's (1752-1814) Berlin Concert Spirituel often featured works by Handel and his contemporaries.61 As founder-editor of the Musikalisches Kunstmagazin, Reichardt also wrote articles about other early masters and included numerous examples of their music.62 Interest in "ancient" music continued to proliferate during the early nineteenth century, and music scholars began to produce practical performance editions of older music.

Two years before Ritter arrived in Berlin, Zelter had died, but his legacy was still felt and perpetuated by his students and assistants who instructed Ritter at the Royal Institute for Church Music. Ritter's organ teacher at the Institute was August Wilhelm Bach (1796-1859), to whom Ritter remained deeply "indebted for his art of registration and accompaniment."63 A. W. Bach, too, was a former teacher of Mendelssohn, and after Zelter's death, he was named the new director of the Royal Institute for Church Music.64 Ritter and A. W. Bach developed a warm admiration for each other and remained close friends long after Ritter's departure from Berlin. It was on Bach's request that Ritter presented an organ concert at the Marienkirche in Berlin on April 18, 1843,65 and eighteen years later Bach attended Ritter's dedicatory recital on the new Domorgel in Magdeburg.66

Ritter's composition teacher at the Institute was Karl Friedrich Rungenhagen (1778-1851), a primarily self-taught musician who had firmly established himself as a composer and conductor in Berlin's musical life. The high esteem in which he was held is evident from the fact that Zelter offered Rungenhagen the position of assistant director of the Singakademie in 1815. Upon Zelter's death in 1832, Rungenhagen was elected his successor to the Singakademie, although Eduard Grell (1800-1886) and Mendelssohn, both former students of Zelter and prominent Berlin musicians, had also been candidates for the position. Rungenhagen continued his predecessors' devotion to tradition, and under his leadership the Singakademie performed Bach's St. John Passion, as well as an abbreviated version of the Mass in B Minor in 1835.67

During his sojourn in Berlin, Ritter also studied piano with Ludwig Berger (1777-1839),68 a concert virtuoso who had taught the young Mendelssohn.69 However, it was not Ritter's teachers in Berlin but two scholars that he met there, Georg Pölchau (1773-1836), and Carl Georg Vivigens von Winterfeld (1784-1852), who significantly altered the direction of Ritter's life. Both men owned large music libraries--Pölchau had purchased many items from the estate of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788),70 and Winterfeld had collected and copied numerous music manuscripts during his travels throughout Italy in 1812 and 1813--and it is evident that they shared their library holdings with Ritter and encouraged him to pursue his interests in music history.71 Without a doubt, Pölchau and Winterfeld can be credited with showing Ritter "new ways in the history of music, particularly organ music."72 In Winterfeld, Ritter discovered an especially kindred spirit who shared his enthusiasm for music history and for church music. Years later, Ritter fondly remembered his Berlin mentor by dedicating the sixth volume of Der Orgelfreund to him,73 and in his autobiographical letter of 1857, Ritter specifically mentions Winterfeld as having been of significant influence on him while in Berlin.74

Later Years in Erfurt

In April of 1835 Ritter left Berlin to return to his former post as organist at the Andreaskirche in Erfurt, but he did not resume his previous teaching posts at the Andreasschule (since 1830) and at the Augustinerschule (since 1831).75 Ritter instead accepted a new teaching position at the Barfüsser-und-Thomas-Mädchen Mittelschule, and three years later he became headmaster of a Knabenoberschule.76

J. I. Müller, Ritter's former music teacher at the Erfurt Teachers Seminary and organist at the Kaufmännerkirche, died in April of 1839, and Ritter was appointed his successor on July 1 of that year.77 The organist position at the Kaufmännerkirche was traditionally reserved for prominent virtuosos. Centuries earlier such renowned organists as Heinrich Buttstett (1666-1727), who had received the title Ratsorganist in 1693, and Johann Bernhard Bach (1676-1749), a distant cousin of J. S. Bach and organ teacher of Walther, had served as organist at the Kaufmännerkirche.78 Before Ritter, the post had been filled by Kittel, G. H. Kluge (1789-1835), and, of course, his teacher Müller. Both the minister and congregation enthusiastically supported church music, and Müller had regularly presented concerts that were reviewed in the Erfurt newspaper.79 Records indicate that Ritter had performed in concert only two times before this appointment--in Weimar in 1834, probably jointly with the Leipzig organist-composer Carl Ferdinand Becker (1804-1877),80 and in August of 1838 during the fourth Songfest in Jena.81 However, Ritter must have concertized on other occasions as well. It was thus indeed quite an honor for Ritter, who was not yet twenty-eight years of age, to be selected to this prestigious post.

The Kaufmännerkirche organist position was coupled with teaching duties at the Stadtschule. According to a personnel evaluation form for the academic year 1840-1841, Ritter demonstrated "skill in teaching, which with increasing experience will still undoubtedly grow."82 The anonymous critic also noted that Ritter was eager to quit his teaching duties, since "for him . . . music [is] closer to the heart."83 In fact, Ritter later complained to the pastor that he did not enjoy the double position as organist/teacher, for it "demands too much of my health."84 In 1839 the music reviewer Gustav Keferstein, who appreciated Ritter's talents and understood his dilemma, had already expressed his hope that Ritter would receive another government grant, since he was "too busy teaching and earning a living . . . to be able to develop and improve his musical talent completely."85

There is no mention of the subjects Ritter was responsible for at any of his Erfurt academic positions. However, he must have given music lessons, either officially or privately, since his pedagogical techniques in piano and composition were discussed briefly in two separate reviews. Keferstein, in an 1839 article on musical activities in Erfurt, observed that Ritter followed the Logier method of group instruction and harmony lessons for keyboard students.86 Ritter must have learned of this approach while in Berlin, where Johann Bernhard Logier (1777-1846) had lived from 1821 until 1826.87 A second comment about Ritter's teaching appeared in another review by Keferstein in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung. In 1842 he noted that Ritter's students composed commendable fugues and that Ritter himself followed the principles of Adolf Bernhard Marx (1795-1866), the author of two instructional manuals for the musically untrained.88

Ritter married sometime during his stay in Erfurt, probably during his years of service at the Kaufmännerkirche. His wife, a native of Erfurt and daughter of a blacksmith, had lived on Gotthard Street, where Ritter had his home as a young boy.89 Robert Eitner, in his biographical article on Ritter, reports, without specifying a date, that Ritter's wife received a "considerable inheritance" from her father.90 The money from the inheritance must have been welcome, since the salary from Ritter's prestigious teacher/organist position was small, and they always needed some additional income.91

During his Erfurt years Ritter conducted and performed at the King's Birthday Festival, and he organized a series of local concerts in which he participated both as a piano soloist and as a member of an ensemble. He also taught piano, composed music, contributed articles to the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, and began to edit keyboard works for Gotthilf Wilhelm Körner (1809-1865), who had established a music publishing firm in the town in 1838. During the 1840s Ritter and Körner, with whom he formed an enduring friendship, co-edited a number of keyboard collections, some of which contained works of the older masters that Ritter himself had copied earlier from manuscripts.92

Merseburg

The year 1843 was a crucial turning point in Ritter's life. Von Eichhorn, the Prussian Minister of Schools who had earlier secured a grant for Ritter's studies in Berlin, offered Ritter a position as second director of the Berlin Domchor.93 This invitation is particularly significant, since Von Eichhorn was not always helpful to young musicians. Just a few years later he thwarted several attempts by Mendelssohn to establish a conservatory for the arts in Berlin. Such a move led Mendelssohn's older sister Fanny to indignantly remark that "this person, Eichhorn, really seems to have sworn death to any free intellectual activity . . . ."94 However, as "a political representative of the Protestant Church"95 and one who was interested in church music, Von Eichhorn must have sensed a special camaraderie in Ritter. Around the same time as Von Eichhorn's offer, Wilhelm Schneider (1783-1843), cathedral organist in Merseburg, had died, and Ritter was asked whether he would take over the vacant position. Not surprisingly, Ritter followed "his inner call" and accepted the organist position in Merseburg, even though the salary of the Berlin directorship was four times greater.96 Church music was declining in importance, but Ritter's sense of values, undoubtedly originating from his firm religious convictions and from a devotion to the improvement of the level of organ performance, remained steadfast.

Ritter's departure for Merseburg presumably occurred in late 1843 or early 1844. Wilhelm Schneider had died on October9, 1843, and François-Joseph Fétis, in his biographical article on Ritter, named 1843 as the year when Ritter left Erfurt.97 On the other hand, Ritter himself lists 1844 as the year of his departure,98 and a brief announcement concerning his acceptance of the Merseburg position appeared in August of 1844.99

Like the Erfurt organist posts, the position as cathedral organist and music director in Merseburg was accompanied by teaching duties. Ritter served as instructor of singing and of geography at the local Gymnasium.100 He also continued to be involved in various musical activities. He founded a Liedertafel,101 a male singing society, and it is quite likely that his song, Immer 'rein in den Bund! for men's chorus dates from this era. In general, Ritter's activities as a performer, conductor, and composer slowed down considerably during his stay in Merseburg from 1843 to 1847. He no longer concertized on the piano at all, and he gave only two public organ recitals--one jointly with Becker, on October 16, 1844, in Halle,102 and another on November 10, 1845, in Merseburg.103 Ritter also conducted only once. During the Lenten season of 1846, he directed a performance of Pergolesi's (1710-1736) Stabat Mater in the Merseburg Cathedral.104 Ritter instead channeled his energies more and more toward the publication of his own works and his editions of other composers' music. During the Merseburg years, Ritter's first organ sonata, his three-volume Die Kunst des Orgelspiels, and several volumes of Der Orgelfreund appeared in print. In 1844 Ritter and his friend Körner also founded a new journal for organists, the Urania, and Ritter began to turn his attention toward historical research about the organ and organ music.

Magdeburg

Sometime during 1844, Ritter was asked to assume a position in Halle, but he declined. However, three years later, when Johann Friedrich Möller, General Superintendent of Saxony and Cathedral Minister of Magdeburg, offered Ritter the position of organist at the Cathedral, he accepted.105

As the new Magdeburg Domorganist and successor of Heinrich Leberecht August Mühling (1788-1847), Ritter finally occupied not only a highly prestigious position but also a well-paying one. Unlike his previous appointments, the Magdeburg position was not accompanied by teaching duties, and Ritter had the leisure to absorb himself completely in rewarding musical activities. One of his first accomplishments was to establish a series of public concerts. When Ritter had arrived in Magdeburg in 1847, the only public musical performances were garden concerts in the summer and the Magdeburg Cathedral choir programs, which were presented twice a month during the "regular" season. There were two music societies, but their performances were open only to members and their guests and relatives.106 Ritter quickly founded a chamber group, consisting of Mühling (probably Julius, the son of August Mühling) on the violin, someone named Meyer as cellist, and Ritter himself as pianist. By the end of 1848, Ritter was inviting "all those who like good music" to attend the trio's concerts, which were held at his residence. According to an anonymous reviewer, who described these programs as "opportunities to hear good Hausmusik," Ritter was attempting to educate an audience "that belongs to all walks of life." The reviewer also predicted that "the indirect effect of all this will certainly be felt and produce results."107 The musical situation in Magdeburg did indeed improve, for which Ritter should receive some credit.108

Ritter continued to compose during the late 1840s and throughout the 1850s, and it is quite likely that his Das Hausorchester, op.39, for piano and strings, was written for the Magdeburg chamber ensemble. Ritter concertized twice after moving to Magdeburg. In 1855 he could experience his "greatest triumph" when he was judged the best performer during a concert at the Marienkirche in Lübeck.109 His last performance was the dedicatory concert for the new Domorgel in Magdeburg in 1861.110 By the early 1860s, though, Ritter had cultivated interests in other aspects of music, and he virtually ceased composing and concertizing.

During the 1850s Ritter assisted with the renovation of organs in Magdeburg, and under his leadership all the large organs in town were newly built or restored.111 Ritter held a particularly high opinion of the organ builder Christian Adolf Reubke (1805-1875), who, although primarily self-trained, had quickly established a reputation as one of the best in Germany. Reubke moved to Magdeburg and, with Ritter's support, was awarded the contract to build new organs for the Cathedral (1858) and St. Jacobi in Magdeburg.112

Ritter's admiration for Reubke must have been mutual, for Ritter became the first music teacher of Reubke's youngest son, Carl Ludwig Gebhardt Otto (1842-1913), who later studied with Hans von Bülow (1830-1894) at the Berlin Conservatory and spent most of his professional career at the University of Halle.113 Among Ritter's other students were G. August Brandt, composer-organist, the composers Karl Martin Reinthaler (1822-1896)114 and Hermann Schroeder (1843-1909),115 and Rudolph Palme (1834-1909), who later became the Royal Music Director and organist at the Heilige Geistkirche in Magdeburg.

Ritter's life in Magdeburg was especially propitious for research, since this was the first time he had both the financial freedom and the leisure to purchase and examine numerous manuscripts. When Robert Eitner founded the Gesellschaft für Musikforschung in 1869, Ritter became one of its first members, and within a few years he contributed three scholarly essays to the society's journal, Monatshefte für Musik-Geschichte.116 Ritter also authored four monographs on early organ composers, all of which were published in the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and later incorporated into his treatise Zur Geschichte des Orgelspiels.117

Ritter's last years were filled with sorrow and misfortune. During the 1873 economic crisis in Prussia, brought on in part by Bismarck's policies of protectionism and tax increases,118 Ritter lost all of his private financial holdings.119 About the same time Ritter's "musically highly talented" son passed away, an event that "robbed him [Ritter] to a large degree of life's happiness."120 The son must have shared his father's love for organ music and developed a certain proficiency on the instrument, possibly with the prospects of a brilliant career ahead of him. Following a concert at the Magdeburg Domkirche in 1869, an anonymous reviewer reported that the "son of the composer," who performed Ritter's second organ sonata, played with "welcome clarity, even in the most intricate and difficult passages."121 The son's untimely death was compounded not much later by the death of Ritter's "faithful, beloved" wife.122

During these years of personal suffering, it must have required all of Ritter's faith and strength to continue working on his Zur Geschichte. Although he maintained his position as organist at the Domkirche, Ritter withdrew from the "noisy, external world," which seemed to him increasingly remote.123

Ritter "never aimed for medals or decorations; yet he had no lack of them."124 In 1845 he was awarded the title, Royal Music Director,125 and on August24 of the following year Ritter, along with Grell and Friedrich Karl Kühmstedt (1809-1858), was named corresponding member of the Niederländischen Gesellschaft zur Beförderung der Tonkunst.126 In 1872 Ritter received the Red Eagle Award Fourth Class.127 Seven years later he was designated "Professor,"128 and in 1880 Ritter was decorated with the "Crown Order Third Class."129 In 1881, fifty-one organist-composers, including such contemporaries as Gustav Merkel (1827-1885) and Joseph Rheinberger (1839-1901), contributed compositions in honor of Ritter's fifty years of service as church organist. More than200 individuals and institutions from throughout Europe and even the United States subscribed to this collection of pieces, which was edited by Palme and entitled the Ritter Album für die Orgel.130

A. G. Ritter died on Wednesday, August 26, 1885, at the age of seventy-four. The preceding Sunday he had, as always, played for the morning worship service, during which he is said to have improvised a "touching" prelude to the chorale Gib dich zufrieden und sei stille. On Sunday afternoon, while preparing for the evening service, he suffered a severe heart attack and, without regaining consciousness, passed away three days later.131 Although in his last years Ritter had led such a secluded existence that hardly anyone in Magdeburg knew him any longer, a large gathering of friends attended his funeral on Saturday, August29, 1885.132  n

Marijim Thoene received a D.M.A. in organ performance/church music from the University of Michigan in 1984. She is an active recitalist and director of music at St. John Lutheran Church in Dundee, Michigan. Her two CDs, Mystics and Spirits and Wind Song, are available from Raven Recordings. She is a frequent presenter at medieval conferences on the topic of the image of the pipe organ in medieval manuscripts.
Lisa Byers received master’s degrees in music education and organ performance from the University of Michigan, and a J.D. from the University of Toledo, Ohio. She is retired from teaching music in the Jefferson Public Schools in Monroe, Michigan, as well as from her position as organist/choir director at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church in Tecumseh, Michigan. She subs as organist in the Monroe area.
Photo credit: Bela Fehe

The University of Michigan 49th Conference on Organ Music was dedicated to the memory of Robert Glasgow, brilliant organist and much loved professor of organ at the University of Michigan. The conference was truly a celebration of his life as a scholar, performer, and teacher. His raison d’être was music—organ music of soaring melodies and transcendent harmonies. He shared his passion with his students and has left a legacy that can be kept alive through generations of students who instill in their students his ideas.
During the conference, a wide variety of lectures were presented that reflected years of research, along with performances of four centuries of organ music. The conference was international in scope, with lecturers and performers from Germany, Italy, Hungary, Canada as well as the U.S. The themes of the conference focused on the influences of J. S. Bach and Mendelssohn’s role in arousing public interest in Bach’s music.

Sunday opening events
The initial event was an afternoon “Festival of Hymns” presented by the UM School of Music, Theatre, and Dance and the American Guild of Organists Ann Arbor chapter. Led by organist-director Michael Burkhardt, it featured the Eastern Michigan University Brass Ensemble, the Detroit Handbell Ensemble, and the Ann Arbor Area Chorus. Special care was taken to choose, coordinate, and connect music by Bach, Mendelssohn, and Charles Wesley. Many hymn verses and arrangement variations kept the presentation musically interesting and enjoyable. Dr. Burkhardt was masterful in his organ solos, accompaniments, improvisations, conducting, and composing. His leadership from the console was met with great enthusiasm from the appreciative, participating audience. (Review by Lisa Byers)
Sunday evening’s organ recital program featured music of Spain and France performed by musicians from the University of Michigan’s Historic Organ Tour 56 to Catalonia and France. Janice Feher opened with an excerpt from a Soler sonata. Gale Kramer performed the “Allegro Vivace” from Widor’s Symphony V, followed by Joanne V. Clark’s rendering of the “Adagio” from Widor’s Symphony VI. Mary Morse sang the versets of a Dandrieu Magnificat for which Christine Chun performed the alternate versets. Timothy Huth played a section from Tournemire’s In Festo Pentecostes, and Paul Merritt closed the program with the Dubois Toccata. The various composition styles, registrations, and favorable interpretations performed excellently and sensitively on the Hill Auditorium organ were well received and greatly acknowledged by the audience. (Review by Lisa Byers)

Monday, October 5
Jason Branham, a doctoral student of Marilyn Mason, set the stage for celebrating not only Mendelssohn’s two hundredth birthday but also his profound influence in bringing the forgotten music of J. S. Bach to the attention of Berlin and consequently to Western society. Branham’s program was a reprise of Mendelssohn’s Bach recital presented at St. Thomas-Kirche in Leipzig in 1840, performed to raise money to erect a monument to Bach in Leipzig: Fugue in E-flat, BWV 552; Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 654; Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543; Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582; Pastoral in F Major, BWV 590; and Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565. Branham’s performance was exciting and earned him thunderous applause.
Christoph Wolff, Professor of Musicology at Harvard, eminent Bach scholar, and author of Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician, gave four illuminating lectures during the conference. In his first lecture, “J. S. Bach the Organist—Recent Research,” he presented arguments supporting Bach’s authorship of the D-minor Toccata and Fugue, BWV 565, dated 1703. Peter Williams, who questioned Bach’s authorship in the 1980s, maintained that such a piece could not have been composed by Bach before 1730. Wolff presented convincing arguments based on an analysis of both the oldest manuscripts and the music itself. He also drew a connection to the discovery in 2008 of Bach’s Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält, BWV 1128, in the library of Halle University. The work is a large free fantasia dated ca. 1705, with compositional features shared by the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. Wolff maintained that Bach, whose organ technique was formidable at an early age, composed the D-minor Toccata and Fugue to dazzle his audience with improvisatory passages borrowed from pieces like Buxtehude’s D-minor Toccata. Wolff concluded that this work was written as a showpiece for Bach himself and not intended to be circulated and copied by his pupils; hence only one copy exists, in the hand of Johannes Ringk, dated 1730.
Michael Barone’s handout listing Mendelssohn recordings was a testimony to his impressive knowledge of recorded organ music. Of the many Mendelssohn pieces he played, the most compelling was a 1973 recording of Mendelssohn’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor, op. 25, played by Robert B. Pitman, piano, and George Lamphere, organ, at the Methuen Music Hall (Pipedreams CD-1002; live performance). The playing was stunning in its youthful exuberance and virtuosity.
Professor Wolff showed images of historical organs and churches connected to Bach, many of which unfortunately no longer exist, in his lecture “Silbermann and Others—The World of Bach Organs.” The most riveting information regarding performance practice of the organ in Bach cantatas came from a view of the original Mülhausen balcony. The balcony was large enough to accommodate strings, woodwinds, brass, and choir; kettle drums were fixed onto the railings overlooking the audience. The choir stood below the instruments. The large organ was used—not a little Positiv. A performance incorporating this practice is on John Eliot Gardner’s recording, Bach Cantata Pilgrimage, using the Altenburg organ in Cantata 146.
James Kibbie, Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan, announced that his recordings of the complete organ works of Bach, performed on historical instruments in Germany, can be found at the website <blockmrecords.org>. The project is supported by a gift from Dr. Barbara Sloat in honor of her late husband J. Barry Sloat. Additional details are available at <www.blockmrecords.org/bach&gt;.
Istvan Ruppert is Dean and Professor of Organ in the Department of Music of the Szechenyi University in Gyor, Hungary, and is also an organ professor at the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music. His program included music by Mendelssohn, Karg-Elert, Max Reger, Liszt, and three Hungarian composers. He has formidable technique and played with great energy and abandon. It was refreshing to hear intriguing and unknown compositions by Frigyes Hidas, Zsolt Gárdonyi, and Istvan Koloss. The humor in Gárdonyi’s Mozart Changes was appreciated. Ruppert is a real enthusiast in sharing music by Hungarian composers by graciously offering to send scores to those who wished to have them.

October 6
Prof. Wolff pointed out in his lecture “Bach’s Organ Music—From 1750 to Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” that Bach’s Clavier Übung III offered a textbook of organ playing. Wolff lamented that Mendelssohn’s inclusion of historical music by Bach, Handel, Mozart, and Haydn into the Gewandhaus concerts had unfortunate consequences in our concert programs today. While only five percent of his concerts were devoted to “historical composers,” the remaining works were by contemporary composers, himself, Liszt, Schumann, and Schubert. Today our programs are mainly old music, with five percent devoted to new music.
Susanne Diederich received a PhD from Tübingen University. Her dissertation, “Original instructions of registration for French organ music in the 17th and 18th centuries: Relations between organ building and organ music during the time of Louis XIV,” represents some of the ground-breaking research on French Classical organs; it was published by Bärenreiter in 1975. In her lecture, “The Classical French Organ, Its Music and the French Influence on Bach’s Organ Composition,” Diederich pointed out that the French Classical organ was complete by 1665, and Guillaume Nivers’ First Organ Book of 1665 contained the first description of all the stops. Her handout was especially informative in showing how Bach’s table of ornaments in his Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm
Friedemann reflected his assimilation of ornament tables by Raison, 1688, Boyvin, 1689, and Couperin, 1690. Robert Luther, organist emeritus of Zion Lutheran Church in Anoka, Minnesota, played movements from Guilain’s Second Suite, and Christopher Urbiel, doctoral student of Marilyn Mason, played movements from de Grigny’s Veni Creator, Marchand’s Livre d’orgue Book I, and Bach’s Fantaisie, BWV 542, to illustrate features Bach borrowed from the French Classical repertoire.
Seth Nelson received his DMA in organ performance from the University of Michigan in 2003; he is organist at the First Baptist Church in San Antonio, Texas, and accompanist for the San Antonio Choral Society and the Trinity University Choir. His lecture/recital, “Music of the Calvinist Reformation: Introducing John Calvin’s Theology of Music,” included an explanation of why Calvin did not approve of the use of the organ in services. The reasons were many: the Old Testament mentioned its use, thus it is not appropriate to use an old instrument in the new age; it is wrong to imitate the Roman Church; it is an unnecessary aid; it is too distracting; it is against Paul’s teaching, “Praise should be in all one tongue.” The highlight of the program was hearing Seth Nelson’s spirited playing of Paul Manz’s introduction to Calvin’s setting of Psalm 42 and Michael Burkhardt’s introduction and interlude to Calvin’s setting of Psalm 134.
The evening concert featured Mendelssohn’s six organ sonatas played by James Hammann, chair of the music department of the University of New Orleans. It was a rare treat to hear these technically demanding pieces all played at one sitting. Dr. Hammann’s years of investment in this music is apparent. His recording of Mendelssohn’s organ works on the 1785 Stumm organ in St. Ulrich’s Church in Neckargemünd is available on the Raven label.

October 7
Tuesday morning began with the annually anticipated narrated photographic summary of European organs presented by Janice and Bela Feher. This year featured the UM Historic Organ Tour 56 to Northern Spain and France. The PowerPoint presentation included at least 600 photographs of organs in 35 religious locations and the Grenzing organ factory in Barcelona. The organs dated from 1522 to 1890 and included builders Dom Bedos, François-Henry, Louis-Alexandre, Clicquot, Cavaillé family, Cavaillé-Coll, Moucherel, and Scherrer. The photos showed views of cases, consoles, mechanical works, stained glass windows, altar pieces, sacred art, and other enhancements. The Fehers provided a written list with detailed information for each picture. Their first book, with Marilyn Mason, is available by mail order from <Blurb.com>. (Review by Lisa Byers)
Stephen Morris is a lecturer in music at Baylor University, Waco, Texas; organist-choirmaster and director of music ministries at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Spirit in Houston, Texas; and maintains a studio as a teacher of singing, largely concentrating on early adolescent female voices. His presentation, “Acclaim, Slander, and Renaissance: An Historical Perspective on Mendelssohn,” incorporated visual images and music. Among the lesser-known facts is that Mendelssohn was admired and befriended by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They chose Mendelssohn’s March from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” for their daughter’s wedding. It became a favorite for productions of Shakespeare throughout Europe. However, due to anti-Semitism fueled by Richard Wagner, Mendelssohn’s March was banned by Nazi Germany, and ten other composers were commissioned to replace it. Ironically, the Nazis preferred Bach above all composers, yet they never would have known about him without Mendelssohn. Morris noted that there is a great wealth of information on Mendelssohn research at <www.
themendelssohnproject.org>.
Professor Wolff concluded his Bach-Mendelssohn lectures with a fascinating presentation, “The Pre-History of Mendelssohn’s Performances of the St. Matthew Passion.” He described Sarah Itzig Levy, Mendelssohn’s maternal great aunt and a famous harpsichordist, as the moving force who began the revival of
J.S. Bach’s music. She introduced family members and friends to many of Bach’s works. She studied with W.F. Bach and commissioned C.P.E. Bach to write what turned out to be his last concerto: one for harpsichord, fortepiano, and orchestra. She regularly performed in weekly gatherings in her salon as soloist with an orchestra from 1774–1784. In 1823 Mendelssohn was given a copy of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion by his grandmother, Bella Salomon, Sara Levy’s sister. It took Mendelssohn five years to persuade his teacher, Carl Friedrich Zelter, to have the Singakademie of Berlin perform it. The 19-year-old Mendelssohn conducted Bach’s St. Matthew Passion to a packed audience that included the Prussian king. This performance enthralled the audience and thus began J. S. Bach’s reentry into the hearts of German people and to the world at large. Mendelssohn continued conducting performances of the St. Matthew Passion when he became director of the Gewandhaus in Leipzig in 1834, at the age of twenty-six. He re-orchestrated it, shortened some pieces, omitted some arias, and introduced the practice of having the chorale Wenn ich einmal soll scheiden sung a cappella. That score and the performing parts are now in the Bodleian Library.
Eugenio Fagiani, resident organist at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church in Bergamo, played a recital at Hill Auditorium featuring Italian composers Filippo Capocci, Oreste Ravanello, Marco Enrico Bossi, and four of his own compositions. His playing was impeccable, and his compositions reflect the influence of one of his teachers, Naji Hakim, in style and use of exotic sounds and feisty, driving rhythms. His Victimae Paschali Laudes, op. 96, has a wide variety of striking timbres, ranging from a clarinet plus mutation stops to a big-band sound. His creativity as a composer was undeniable in his Festive Prelude, op. 99b, composed for this conference. Here the pedal occasionally sounded like percussive drums. The work sizzled with energy and ended in a fiery toccata. Fagiani played “Joke,” another of his compositions, as an encore. The audience enjoyed his quotations from J. S. Bach and John Lennon. More can be learned about this impressive composer/organist at his website:
<www.eugeniomariafagiani.com&gt;.
Michele Johns, Adjunct Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan, presented an interesting lecture on the changes of taste reflected in hymnals from four denominations over the past forty years. She noted that the texts have become more gender inclusive, hymns in foreign languages are included (“What a Friend We Have in Jesus” appears in four languages in the Presbyterian Hymnal), and there is greater variety in styles from “pantyhose music”—one size fits all—to Taizé folk melodies; she proved her point that in today’s hymnals there is “Something Old, Something New.”
One of the most exciting recitals of the conference was played by Aaron Tan, a student of Marilyn Mason and a graduate student in the School of Engineering at the University of Michigan, organist/choirmaster at the First Presbyterian Church in Ypsilanti, and director of the Ypsilanti Pipe Organ Festival. His memorized recital shimmered with grace and energy: Alleluyas by Simon Preston; Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, op. 7, no. 3, by Marcel Dupré; Sicilienne from Suite, op. 5, by Maurice Duruflé; Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, by J. S. Bach; Moto ostinato from Sunday Music by Petr Eben; Naïades and Final from Symphony No. 6 by Louis Vierne. The audience gave him a standing ovation.
The concluding recital was played in Hill Auditorium in memory of Robert Glasgow by some of his former students. The program was a beautiful tribute to his life—a life devoted to the study, performance and teaching of organ music, especially the music of Franck, Mendelssohn, Vierne, Widor, Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms. The performers brought with them some of his spirit, some of his light, some of his joy in creating something that puts us in another dimension. His attention to the minutest detail of the score, his total commitment to breathing life into each phrase was mirrored in these performers:
Mark Toews, director of music, Lawrence Park Community Church, Toronto, past president, Royal Canadian College of Organists, Variations de Concert, op. 1 by Joseph Bonnet; Ronald Krebs, vice president, Reuter Organ Company, O Welt, ich muss dich lassen, op. 122, no. 11, Fugue in A-flat Minor, WoO8, by Johannes Brahms; David Palmer, Professor Emeritus, School of Music, University of Windsor, organist and choir director, All Saints’ Church, Windsor, Ontario, L’Apparition du Christ ressuscité a Marie-Madeleine by Olivier Messiaen; Joanne Vollendorf Clark, Chair of the Music Department, Marygrove College, Detroit, minister of music, Hartford Memorial Baptist Church, Detroit, Pastorale, op. 26, by Alexandre Guilmant; Charles Miller, minister of music and organist, National City Christian Church, Washington, D.C., Pièce héroïque by César Franck; Joseph Jackson, organist, First Presbyterian Church, Royal Oak, Michigan, “Air with Variations” from Suite for Organ by Leo Sowerby; and Jeremy David Tarrant, organist and choirmaster, the Cathedral Church of St. Paul, Detroit, Andantino, op. 51, no. 2, and Carillon de Westminster, op. 54, no. 6, by Louis Vierne.
Professor Marilyn Mason made the 49th Conference on Organ Music at the University of Michigan a reality. She invested countless hours of planning and organizing into making it happen, because she has an insatiable thirst for learning and thinks “we all need to learn.” She has brought brilliant scholars and performers together for 49 years to teach and inspire us. The list includes such figures as Almut Rössler, Umberto Pineschi, Martin Haselböck, Todd Wilson, Janette Fishell, Madame Duruflé, Catherine Crozier, Guy Bovet, Peter Williams, Lady Susi Jeans, Wilma Jensen, Gordon Atkinson, and Marie-Claire Alain (to name only a few). We thank her for such priceless gifts.

The Diapason’s Harpsichord Editor since 1969, Larry Palmer is author of the pioneering book, Harpsichord in America: A Twentieth-Century Revival, published by Indiana University Press in 1989 (paperback second edition, 1993). Of six international advisors for the Berlin commemoration, two were Americans: Teri Noel Towe (New York) and Palmer (Dallas). Poster and postcard images for the exhibition featured an anonymous caricature belonging to Palmer, the gift of Momo Aldrich, first secretary to the iconic Landowska.

The Power of the Press:
“A Living Legend”
Nicholas Slonimsky (1894–1995), writing about harpsichordist Wanda Landowska for the French journal Disques in 1932, introduced his subject with a three-stanza poem. It begins:

Her fingers on the cembalo
Type out the polyphonic lore
Of Bach’s Inventions—and restore
The true original edition
Unobfuscated by tradition.1
Twelve years later, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, habitually cranky New York music critic Virgil Thomson (1896–1989), reviewed the Polish harpsichordist’s Town Hall concert of 20 November 1944 under the adulatory headline “Definitive Renderings”:

Wanda Landowska’s harpsichord recital of last evening . . . was as stimulating as a needle shower. . . . She played everything better than anybody else ever does. One might almost say, were not such a comparison foolish, that she plays the harpsichord better than anybody else ever plays anything . . .
. . . [Her] playing of the harpsichord . . . reminded one all over again that there is nothing else in the world like it. There does not exist in the world today, nor has there existed in my lifetime, another soloist of this or any other instrument whose work is so dependable, so authoritative, and so thoroughly satisfactory. From all the points of view—historical knowledge, style, taste, understanding, and spontaneous musicality—her renderings of harpsichord repertory are, for our epoch, definitive. Criticism is unavailing against them, has been so, indeed, for thirty years.2
It seems that the divine Wanda had accomplished her objective, half a century in the making, of restoring the harpsichord to a recognized place in the cultural consciousness of music lovers, both in Europe and in the western hemisphere. Her personal style, based on an innate rhythmic certainty, a turn-of-the-century impressionistic use of tonal color, and, not incidentally, her careful perusal of historical source materials had made her name virtually synonymous with the word harpsichord, at least in the collective consciousness of the public.

True Believers:
Expatriated European and Native American Disciples
Landowska’s acolytes dominated those American venues where harpsichords were played: Alice Ehlers (1887–1981), Professor Landowska’s first student in 1913 Berlin, immigrated to the United States and taught for 26 years at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Among Ehlers’s fascinating oral history recorded vignettes she noted that Landowska did not talk much in those early lessons, but she relied heavily on playing for her students. Later, in Ehlers’s own teaching, at least one anecdote retold by her student Malcolm Hamilton (1932–2003) showed that Ehlers was less than impressed at his derivative details copied from Landowska’s style. When Hamilton added an unwritten trill to the subject of a Bach fugue Ehlers stopped him to ask why. “I heard a recording by Wanda Landowska,” he began. Madame Ehlers interrupted brusquely, “Wanda Landowska was a genius. You and I, Malcolm, we are not geniuses—‘spaacially you!”3
Two more Landowska students holding American academic posts were Marie Zorn (b. 1907?), who promoted the Landowskian style in her harpsichord teaching at Indiana University from 1958 until 1976, and Putnam Aldrich (1904–1975), who married Wanda’s own personal secretary Madeleine Momot in 1931 (with a somewhat-reconciled Landowska as witness for the bride). Eventually “Put” settled his young family in northern California, where he established a prestigious doctoral program in early music at Stanford University.
In concert halls, Madame’s final brilliant students, Rafael Puyana (born 1931), a South American of blazing virtuosity, and Texas-born Paul Wolfe (born 1929), both built solo careers in the decade following their teacher’s death.
In 1961 Puyana played a concert at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, during my first year there as a doctoral student. Rafael, the scion of a wealthy family, toured the country with a Pleyel harpsichord (the instrument of choice for Landowska’s students) and a personal driver. His Eastman recital was a dashing and colorful evocation of a Landowska program, including kaleidoscopic changes of registration; a repertoire firmly grounded in the major Bach works; but with at least one non-Landowska addition: his own harpsichord transcription of a Canción for piano by the Catalan composer Frederico Mompou.
Paul Wolfe, not from a moneyed family, set out to make his name through recordings. I came to know him when Nick Fritsch of Lyrichord Records decided to reissue a number of their 1950s vinyl issues on compact discs and asked me to write an introductory article explaining harpsichord pedals. Wolfe’s instruments—a 1907 Pleyel of wooden construct and a large concert instrument completed in 1958 by the young northeastern builders Frank Rutkowski and Richard Robinette—as well as programs that featured 17th-century works by Frescobaldi and the English virginalists, Spanish music, and all eight of the 1720 Handel Suites—presented both facile young fingers and an expanding repertory of early keyboard music to the American harpsichord scene.

A Contrarian’s View of Landowska
During the autumnal years of Landowska’s career, critics of her playing style were not legion. But one composer-critic who did not idolize the High Priestess of the Harpsichord was neo-classicist composer Robert Evett (1922–1975). In a 1952 piece for The New Republic, Evett wrote:

Mme. Landowska has seduced the brighter part of the American public into believing that she offers it an authentic reading of Bach and his predecessors. What this lady actually uses is a modern Pleyel harpsichord, an instrument that she employs as a sort of dispose-all. . . .
After fifteen years of incredulous listening, I am finally convinced that this woman kicks all the pedals in sight when she senses danger ahead. When she sits down to play a Bach fugue, I go through all the torments that a passenger experiences when he is being driven over a treacherous mountain road by an erratic driver, and when she finally finishes the thing it is almost a pleasure to relax into nausea.4
A Different Aesthetic:
Ralph Kirkpatrick
Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911–1984), funded by a post-graduate John Knowles Paine Traveling Fellowship from Harvard University, set off for Europe in the fall of 1931 to hone his harpsichord playing skills. As described in his memoirs,5 the pre-eminent American harpsichordist of his generation had a difficult relationship with the priestess of St-Leu, eventually running off to Berlin for coaching and consolation with another Landowska student, the more congenial Eta Harich-Schneider (1897–1986). Kirkpatrick’s public playing, beginning with concerts and recordings during the 1930s, sounded distinctly unlike Landowska’s in its conscious avoidance of excessive registration changes and its near-metronomic regularity. Teri Noel Towe’s description of Kirkpatrick’s style, printed as a “disclaimer” in the compact disc reissue of these early solo recordings for Musicraft Records, puts it this way:

Some listeners confuse Ralph Kirkpatrick’s tenacious and unswerving commitment to the composer’s intentions with dullness and mistake his exquisite attention to detail and technical accuracy for dryness. These detractors would do well to listen again. There is a special beauty and unique warmth to Kirkpatrick’s sometimes austere but always direct, ‘no nonsense’ performances; his interpretations are always superbly conceived, often transcendent, and occasionally hypnotic. . . .6
For a balanced evaluation of Kirkpatrick the harpsichordist, one needs to sample some later examples from his extensive discography. A 1959 Deutsche Grammophon Archiv recording of Bach played on a Neupert instrument presents quite another aural document of a decidedly non-austere artist. And by 1973 when I experienced Kirkpatrick’s deeply-moving playing of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at the Rothko Chapel in Houston (Texas), I reported in The Diapason that “Kirkpatrick played magnificently with a prodigious technical command of the work as well as with spacious feeling for the overall architecture . . .”7
At the very end of a more than five-decade career, and now totally blind, the aged master could allow his innate musical sensitivity to triumph. Despite his end-of-career tongue-in-cheek comments about preferring the piano, the Yale professor was the most highly regarded and recorded native harpsichordist in the United States during the period of Landowska’s American residency.
Other noted American players of Kirkpatrick’s generation included Yella Pessl (1906–1991) and Sylvia Marlowe (1908–1981). Marlowe’s first instrument was a true Landowska Pleyel, by this time painted white, the better to be seen on the revolving stage of New York City’s Rainbow Room, where Sylvia played jazz arrangements of classical favorites under the catchy rubric Lavender and New Lace. Deeply influenced by Landowska’s playing, encountered while the New Yorker was studying with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, Marlowe’s 1959 solo Bach recording for Decca demonstrates how much Madame’s long musical shadow dominated the American harpsichord scene.
Eventually Ms. Marlowe chose to play harpsichords built by the American maker John Challis, moving subsequently to those of Challis’s apprentice William Dowd (with lid-paintings by her own husband, the artist Leonid [Berman]). Non-night-club recital repertoire included 18th-century classics, soon augmented extensively by commissions to prominent living composers. Thus, important works by Ned Rorem and Elliott Carter, to cite only two, came into being through Marlowe’s sponsorship. Together with the impressive catalog of similar commissions from the Swiss harpsichordist Antoinette Vischer (1909–1973), Marlowe’s initiatives helped to provide the harpsichord with an extensive, new twentieth-century musical voice.
Influenced by Kirkpatrick during student days at Yale, Fernando Valenti (1926–1990) switched from piano to harpsichord, and also played important new works by Vincent Persichetti (that composer’s First Harpsichord Sonata composed in 1952) and Mel Powell (Recitative and Toccata Percossa). However, Valenti made his name primarily as the most exciting player of Domenico Scarlatti’s sonatas and specifically as the first harpsichordist to record such a large number of them—359 individual works performed on his Challis harpsichord in a series of albums for Westminster Records. In 1951 he was appointed the first harpsichord professor at New York’s Juilliard School. Several didactic books, published late in Valenti’s career, are as colorful and insightful as his playing. Who could resist a chuckle at words such as these?

Many years ago I promised myself that I would never put in print anything that even vaguely resembled a ‘method’ for harpsichord playing and this is it.8
One of the best-known harpsichordists to study privately with Valenti was Berlin-born Igor Kipnis (1930–2002), son of the prominent bass opera singer Alexander Kipnis. The family moved to the United States in 1938, where both Kipnises became familiar names in the classical music arena. Igor was particularly noted for his comprehensive and innovative repertory, recorded extensively. His playing was thoroughly representative of a more objective style of harpsichord performance.

Winds (or Strings and Quills) of Change?
One of the great services rendered by Kirkpatrick was his fervent advocacy for the historically inclined instruments of Frank Hubbard and William Dowd. As the years went by, these musical machines emulated ever more closely those from earlier centuries, albeit with some decidedly 20th-century materials, such as the plastics used for jacks and plectra. But with keyboards built to various baroque dimensions; sensitive, light actions; and registers deployed in a way that an 18th-century composer might have expected; together with the absence, for the most part, of the sixteen-foot register and pedals, these light and agile instruments gave the new generation of players sensitive tools for performing the music of the past. Emulating Hubbard and Dowd, a number of builders, in Boston and other American venues, and throughout the world, joined the “surge to the past,” and thereby changed both the dynamic and the expected sounds of harpsichord revival instruments.
Among Kirkpatrick’s allies in promoting these new “old” instruments were two Fullers—his student Albert (1926–2007) and the not-related David (born 1927), and harpsichordist/conductors Miles Morgan and William Christie. As the 1960s gave way to the 1970s, nearly every emerging teacher and player in the country seemed to be joining the pedal-less crowd. In 1966 I met Dr. Joseph Stephens and played the Hubbard and Dowd harpsichord in his Baltimore (Maryland) home. Shortly thereafter I ordered my own first Dowd double. It was delivered at the beginning of January 1969. As has happened for so many players in our small musical world, that sensitive instrument taught me as much as had the memorable hours spent studying with two of the finest teachers imaginable: Isolde Ahlgrimm (at the Salzburg Mozarteum), and Gustav Leonhardt (during two memorable July participations in his master classes at the annual Haarlem Summer Organ Academies).

Influential European
Artist-Teachers
Both of these superb artists made significant contributions to harpsichord playing in the United States: Ahlgrimm (1914–1995) through her teaching in Salzburg, Vienna, and during semester-long guest professorships at Oberlin and Southern Methodist University, as well as several American concert tours organized by managers, but aided and attended by her grateful students. Until recently, Ahlgrimm’s place in the story of the 20th-century harpsichord revival has been little celebrated. With the publication of Peter Watchorn’s major study Isolde Ahlgrimm, Vienna and the Early Music Revival,9 that deficiency in our history has been rectified!
Leonhardt (born 1928), surely the most recorded of post-Landowska harpsichordists, has influenced virtually every harpsichordist from the second half of the 20th-century forward. His students seem to be everywhere. Even the most cursory of enumerations would include many of the leading teachers in the U.S: Oberlin’s first full-time professor of harpsichord Lisa Crawford; Michigan’s Edward Parmentier; Boston’s John Gibbons; University of New York at Stony Brook’s Arthur Haas; Florida State’s Karyl Louwenaar; Illinois’ Charlotte Mattax; and, particularly during the 1970s and ’80s, my own large group of harpsichord major students at Southern Methodist University. In the spirit of the early music excitement of those decades, SMU conferred his first doctorate on Leonhardt in 1984, citing the Dutch harpsichordist’s advocacy of “performance on period instruments,” as well as his “commitment to both stylistic authority and artistic sensitivity in recreating music of the past.”
To this day, more than 25 years after the conferral of that honorary degree, Leonhardt still refers to me in communications as his “Doktor-Vater.” Whereas Ahlgrimm referred to herself as a biological phenomenon since she “got more children the older she became,” Leonhardt’s humorous salutation presents me with a similar phenomenon: the “son” as father to the “father.” At any rate, I am pleased to have Dr. Leonhardt as my most distinguished graduate!
Ah yes, students—the new generators of harpsichord playing in America. Too many to list, but perhaps one graced with multiple “A’s” may serve as representative—Andrew Appel, American, who completed his doctoral studies with Juilliard harpsichord professor Albert Fuller in 1983, and now carries on that line from his teacher, who had been a pupil of Ralph Kirkpatrick, who was . . . and here we could circle back to the beginning of this essay. May Andrew Appel represent the achievements of so many of our fine young players: the late Scott Ross, the with-it Skip Sempé, the sensitive Michael Sponseller, the delightful teaching colleague Barbara Baird—Americans, all!
Ultimately all of us are indebted to those European “explorers” who have provided our inspiration and training: French/English Arnold Dolmetsch, Austrian Isolde Ahlgrimm, Dutch Gustav Leonhardt: all contributors to the variety and richness of the harpsichord’s presence in our contemporary musical life. And our Polish mother, Wanda Landowska: that vibrant musician who has brought us together for this celebration of her musical legacy.

Some Information about Added Aural Examples
This paper was presented at the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum on November 14, 2009, during a symposium in conjunction with the exhibition Die Dame mit dem Cembalo [The Lady with the Harpsichord], in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Wanda Landowska’s death. The topic was suggested by the museum’s curator Martin Elste, who organized the event. To remain within an imposed time limit, I chose to include only seven short recorded examples, each one a performance of the same final 25 measures from the third (Presto) movement of J. S. Bach’s Italian Concerto (BWV 971)—with an individual duration of between 30 and 40 seconds.
The first example demonstrated one of the most unforgettable of all my musical experiences: Landowska’s unexpected slight agogic hesitation between top and bottom notes of the climactic downward octave leap in measure 199, the last return of that wonderfully energetic opening theme. Taken from her 1936 recording for EMI [reissued in Great Recordings of the Century, CDH 7610082], it served as an aural measuring rod with which to compare the following recordings, made “after” Landowska.
Example Two presented the young Ralph Kirkpatrick playing his early 20th-century Dolmetsch-Chickering harpsichord, captured in a 1939 recording for Musicraft, digitized on Pearl [Great Virtuosi of the Harpsichord, volume II, GEMM CD 9245]. Example Three: Kirkpatrick again, 20 years later, recorded in a thrillingly theatrical performance played on a powerhouse Neupert instrument for Archiv [198 032] (LP).
Example Four: Sylvia Marlowe, like Landowska, played on an instrument by Pleyel, recorded in 1959 for Decca [DL 710012] (LP).
Example Five: Leading Bach authority Isolde Ahlgrimm, recorded 1975, playing her 1972 David Rubio harpsichord, recorded by Philips [6580 142] (LP).
Example Six: Gustav Leonhardt utilized the sound of an actual 18th-century historic instrument for his 1976 recording on a 1728 Hamburg harpsichord by Christian Zell. Seon [Pro Arte PAL-1025] (LP).
Example Seven: Andrew Appel played a 1966 harpsichord by Rutkowski and Robinette in his 1987 recording for Bridge Records [BCD 9005), concluding the musical examples in just under four minutes! Fortunately for the word-weary, the next, and final, presentation of the two-day seminar was given by British record collector extraordinaire Peter Adamson, comprising a fascinating sound and image survey of early harpsichord recordings.